What Does Numbers 16:14 Mean in the King James?
Moreover thou hast not brought us into a land that floweth with milk and honey, or given us inheritance of fields and vineyards: wilt thou put out the eyes of these men? we will not come up.
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 complaint that the land does not flow with abundance ends by threatening to gouge out the eyes, turning a grievance over what is unseen into a threat against seeing itself.
THE MEANING
The voice names the absence of promised abundance as total deprivation, no land, no inheritance, no vineyards, and turns that claim into a threat against the eyes of the men it confronts. The refusal to come up makes grievance and defiance part of the same speech.
THE ROOT
עֵינֵי
ʿênê
GROWS FROM
עין
ʿ-y-n
Eye; the same Hebrew word also means a spring or source.
“eyes” in this verse is ʿênê. English presents only the body part under threat. The same Hebrew noun also names a spring or source, giving the threat a resonance of shutting off the source of sight; “spring” is a resonance here, not a second translation.
ALSO GROWS
ʿayin: Eye
עַיִן
The men’s eyes are the direct target of the threat.
ʿayin: Spring, fountain, or source
עַיִן
This shared Hebrew word lets the threatened eyes echo a source being gouged shut.
זָבַת
zāvat
GROWS FROM
זוב
z-w-b
To flow, gush, or issue.
“floweth” in this verse is zāvat. The land is described with an active word for flowing out, not simply as a place that contains abundance. That image of ongoing outpouring stands in sharp contrast to the threat against the eyes.
ALSO GROWS
zāv: Flowing or issuing
זָב
This form describes something that is actively flowing, like the promised abundance of the land.
zōv: A flow or discharge
זֹב
The noun preserves the root’s sense of something issuing forth.
THE PATTERN
Eyes are a point of reception: opening them admits sight and light, while threatening them means threatening that access.
The LORD openeth the eyes of the blind: the LORD raiseth them that are bowed down: the LORD loveth the righteous:To open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house.The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.THE THREAD
A land which the LORD thy God careth for: the eyes of the LORD thy God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year even unto the end of the year.Both verses use עַיִן (ʿayin, eye) beside a land. In Numbers, the men threaten to gouge out eyes while claiming the land has not been given; here, the LORD’s eyes remain upon the land throughout the year.
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