What Does Numbers 16:43 Mean in the King James?
And Moses and Aaron came before the tabernacle of 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 drawn-out one comes before the tent named for an appointed meeting: arrival turns toward encounter.
THE MEANING
This verse speaks to you as a scene of approach: Moses and Aaron come faceward to the tent whose name carries the sense of an appointed meeting. “Before” places them in front of a presence, and the place is defined by the encounter set there.
THE ROOT
אֹהֶל מוֹעֵד
ohel mo'ed
GROWS FROM
יעד
ya'ad
To appoint, designate, or set a meeting.
“tabernacle of the congregation” in this verse is ohel mo'ed. The Hebrew phrase means “tent of meeting.” מוֹעֵד (mo’ed) carries the sense of an appointed meeting or time, so the tent is named for the encounter set there.
ALSO GROWS
mo'ed: An appointed time or meeting place.
מוֹעֵד
The tent’s name carries the idea of an encounter set in place.
veno'adeti: “And I will meet,” as in Exodus 25:22.
וְנוֹעַדְתִּי
This form uses the same root for the meeting God says will happen at the tent.
אֶל־פְּנֵי
el-penei
GROWS FROM
פנה
panah
To turn or face toward.
“Before” here places Moses and Aaron in front of the tent, with the Hebrew form belonging to the face/front family. The phrase carries the nearness of facing something, not just being somewhere nearby.
ALSO GROWS
panim: Face, front, or presence.
פָּנִים
It shows the face-oriented sense carried by “before.”
lifnei: Before, in front of, or in the presence of.
לִפְנֵי
This related form makes the spatial and relational senses of “before” meet.
מֹשֶׁה
Mosheh
GROWS FROM
משׁה
mashah
To draw out, especially from water.
Moses’ name is linked in Exodus to being drawn from the water. Here the one whose name carries that emergence comes before the appointed meeting place, bringing the name’s sense of being drawn out alongside the movement toward encounter.
ALSO GROWS
mashah: To draw out.
מָשָׁה
This verb carries the action behind the name Moses.
meshitihu: “I drew him out,” the wording connected to Moses’ name in Exodus 2:10.
מְשִׁיתִהוּ
The name’s link to being drawn out of water gives Moses’ arrival here an added depth.
THE PATTERN
Encounter is marked by movement toward an appointed presence, whether at a meeting place, among an assembly, or through drawing near.
And the LORD spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend. And he turned again into the camp: but his servant Joshua, the son of Nun, a young man, departed not out of the tabernacle.For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.THE THREAD
And there I will meet with thee, and I will commune with thee from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubims which are upon the ark of the testimony, of all things which I will give thee in commandment unto the children of Israel.The tent’s name and God’s promise to meet use the same root, יעד (ya’ad, appoint or meet). Exodus names the place by the encounter set there, so Moses and Aaron’s approach is a movement toward the meeting itself.
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