What Does Numbers 16:22 Mean in the King James?
And they fell upon their faces, and said, O God, the God of the spirits of all flesh, shall one man sin, and wilt thou be wroth with 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 verse invokes the God of every person’s breath to distinguish one person’s missing from the whole congregation.
THE MEANING
You stand within the regard of the God of the spirits of all flesh: each living person’s inner life is in view. The verse holds one person’s failure beside the whole congregation and asks whether anger belongs on all for the act of one. The question stays sharp; shared life does not erase the distinction it names.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that one person’s failure makes everyone in a community indistinguishable before God is challenged here: the question separates “one man” from “all the congregation.”
THE ROOT
רוּחוֹת
rûḥôt
GROWS FROM
רוח
r-w-ḥ
To blow or move as air; wind, breath, and spirit.
“spirits” in this verse is rûḥôt. רוּחַ names wind, breath, and spirit with one word, and its plural here reaches “all flesh.” The plea rests on God’s regard for the inner life of every living person as it asks whether the many should share anger for one person’s act.
ALSO GROWS
Wind: Moving air.
רוּחַ
The same Hebrew word can name wind, keeping outward motion and inner life within one term.
Breath: Breath or animating life.
רוּחַ
The plural “spirits” places the living inner life of all flesh within the phrase.
Spirit: The inward spirit or disposition.
רוּחַ
This sense brings the focus to the distinct lives God knows within the congregation.
יֶחֱטָא
yeḥĕṭāʾ
GROWS FROM
חטא
ḥ-ṭ-ʾ
To miss or fail to reach.
“sin” in this verse is yeḥĕṭāʾ. The Hebrew names the actor as singular, “one man” יֶחֱטָא, “misses”, before setting that act against “all the congregation.” The root keeps the act of missing visible as the question tests whether one person’s miss should become the charge against everybody.
ALSO GROWS
ḥōṭēʾ: A sinner; one who misses.
חוֹטֵא
The branch keeps agency attached to the individual whose act the verse names.
ḥaṭṭāʾt: Sin or missing; in ritual contexts, an offering for sin.
חַטָּאת
The same root has related forms for the act and its ritual response, while this verse asks whose act is at issue.
THE PATTERN
Scripture distinguishes personal culpability from shared belonging: one person’s act does not automatically become every person’s charge.
The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers: every man shall be put to death for his own sin.The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him.So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God.THE THREAD
Let the LORD, the God of the spirits of all flesh, set a man over the congregation,The exact phrase “God of the spirits of all flesh” appears again when Moses asks for a leader for the congregation. Here it grounds a plea not to collapse one man’s act and the whole assembly; there it grounds a request for care of the assembly.
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