What Does Numbers 16:19 Mean in the King James?
And Korah gathered all the congregation against them unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation: and the glory of the LORD appeared unto all the congregation.
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 crowd Korah gathers against Moses and Aaron becomes the very assembly before whom the LORD’s weight appears.
THE MEANING
The gathering stands against Moses and Aaron, yet the LORD’s glory becomes visible to the whole assembly. No one in the crowd remains outside the encounter.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie is that a crowd’s agreement makes its opposition right. The whole assembly sees that collective force does not determine what is weighty.
THE ROOT
כָּבוֹד
kavod
GROWS FROM
כבד
k-b-d
To be heavy; weight, importance, or honor.
“glory” in this verse is kavod. The LORD’s kavod is more than a title or reputation: the word carries the sense of weight. What the whole assembly witnesses is a presence made unmistakable.
ALSO GROWS
kaved: Heavy.
כָּבֵד
This basic sense of weight reveals the physical depth beneath the verse’s word “glory.”
kibbed: To honor, treat as weighty.
כִּבֵּד
Honor and weight share a root: what is honored is treated as having substance and consequence.
עֵדָה
edah
GROWS FROM
יעד
y-ʿ-d
To appoint, designate, or meet by arrangement.
The word for the congregation resonates with מוֹעֵד (mo’ed, appointed meeting), found in “the tabernacle of the congregation” in this same verse. The crowd is gathered against Moses and Aaron at a place whose name carries the sense of an appointed encounter.
ALSO GROWS
mo’ed: An appointed time or meeting place.
מוֹעֵד
It appears in the Hebrew name for the tent of meeting, placing the congregation at a site marked for encounter.
ya’ad: To appoint or designate; to meet.
יָעַד
The root links this congregation to being convened or set for an encounter.
וַיַּקְהֵל
wayyaqhel
GROWS FROM
קהל
q-h-l
To assemble or convene a group.
“gathered” in this verse is wayyaqhel. Korah’s act is not simply that people are present: he convenes them against Moses and Aaron. The verse then shows that the assembled crowd becomes the audience for the LORD’s appearing.
ALSO GROWS
qahal: An assembly or gathered community.
קָהָל
It names the collective formed by Korah’s action.
haqhel: Assemble or convene.
הַקְהֵל
This causative form makes the act of bringing the people together explicit.
THE PATTERN
The LORD’s weight becomes visible among people gathered in a moment of encounter.
And it came to pass, as Aaron spake unto the whole congregation of the children of Israel, that they looked toward the wilderness, and, behold, the glory of the LORD appeared in the cloud.And Moses and Aaron went into the tabernacle of the congregation, and came out, and blessed the people: and the glory of the LORD appeared unto all the people.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
But all the congregation bade stone them with stones. And the glory of the LORD appeared in the tabernacle of the congregation before all the children of Israel.Numbers 14:10 repeats כָּבוֹד (kavod, weight or glory) as a hostile congregation rises against Moses and Aaron. The repeated wording links the crowd’s opposition here with another moment when the whole assembly sees what its gathering cannot control.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
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