What Does Numbers 15:37 Mean in the King James?
And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The verse says “spake” and “saying” with one Hebrew root: the divine voice is already opening into the words that follow.
THE MEANING
The LORD speaks to Moses, and the saying opens into the instruction that follows. The verse holds you at the threshold where a voice becomes words you can hear.
THE ROOT
וַיֹּאמֶר
wayyōʾmer
GROWS FROM
אמר
Say, speak.
“spake / saying” in this verse is wayyōʾmer. The Hebrew uses the same אמר root for “spake” and “saying.” English gives them different forms, while Hebrew binds the act of speaking to the utterance it opens.
ALSO GROWS
ʾāmar: To say, speak.
אָמַר
This is the verb behind “spake”; it shares its root with the “saying” that follows.
ʾimrāh: Utterance, saying.
אִמְרָה
This related noun keeps the utterance itself in view: speech is opening into words.
מֹשֶׁה
Mōsheh
GROWS FROM
משׁה
Draw out.
The name Moses is linked in Exodus 2:10 to מָשָׁה, “to draw out.” The saying reaches Moses, whose name carries the image of being drawn out.
ALSO GROWS
māshāh: To draw out.
מָשָׁה
This is the verb associated with Moses’s name and the image of emergence it carries.
Mōsheh: Moses; associated with “drawn out.”
מֹשֶׁה
The name identifies the one receiving the saying through that image of being drawn out.
THE PATTERN
A divine utterance opens into a reality that can be seen or met.
And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.THE THREAD
And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.Both verses use אמר (ʾāmar, “to say, speak”) to introduce divine speech. Numbers holds the verb and its infinitive together in “spake…saying”; Genesis shows what follows its utterance: the jussive permission for light to be. That grammatical feature belongs to Genesis’s creation speech, while the shared root shows how speech opens what comes next.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
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