What Does Numbers 20:16 Mean in the King James?
And when we cried unto the LORD, he heard our voice, and sent an angel, and hath brought us forth out of Egypt: and, behold, we are in Kadesh, a city in the uttermost of thy border:
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
God’s hearing becomes visible as release: the answer sends movement out of constriction, even when it reaches only a border.
THE MEANING
Your cry is heard as more than sound: the response takes shape in a messenger sent and a way opened out of constriction. You can be truly brought out and still stand at a border; Kadesh’s name carries set-apartness, while the edge of the land remains in view.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that being heard means every boundary vanishes immediately dissolves here: the people are out of Egypt, yet still at the far edge of another border.
THE ROOT
וַיִּשְׁלַח
vayishlach
GROWS FROM
שלח
shalach
Send forth, let go, release.
The sent messenger is the first visible act of release: sending does not stop at dispatch but opens a way out for the people. This root holds sending and letting go together, so the messenger marks the beginning of their movement out of Egypt’s constriction.
ALSO GROWS
shilleach: Send away; release or dismiss.
שִׁלֵּחַ
It shows the releasing sense carried within the act of sending.
shilluach: A sending away or dismissal.
שִׁלּוּחַ
It makes the movement away explicit, echoing the people’s departure from Egypt.
וַיּוֹצִאֵנוּ
vayyotsi'enu
GROWS FROM
יצא
yatsa
Go out, come forth, emerge; in a causative form, bring out.
“brought forth” in this verse is vayyotsi'enu. The verb here is causative: the people do not merely leave; someone brings them out. Release is an enacted passage away from Egypt, and the verse places those brought out at a border that remains to be crossed.
ALSO GROWS
yetzi'ah: Going out or departure.
יְצִיאָה
It names the outward movement contained in being brought forth.
motsa: An outlet, exit, or place of going out.
מוֹצָא
It gives the movement a visible opening through which one can leave confinement.
קָדֵשׁ
Kadesh
GROWS FROM
קדש
qadash
Set apart, distinguish as separate.
Kadesh’s name carries the quality of being set apart, so the place is more than a coordinate. Yet it is also at the edge of a border: the verse holds a set-apart place and an unfinished crossing together.
ALSO GROWS
qodesh: Set-apartness; a sacred or set-apart place or thing.
קֹדֶשׁ
It reveals the quality held in the place-name Kadesh.
qadosh: Set apart.
קָדוֹשׁ
It shows the root’s quality in descriptive form, illuminating the place as distinct.
THE PATTERN
A heard cry becomes release through a sending that moves people out of confinement and toward a threshold.
The righteous cry, and the LORD heareth, and delivereth them out of all their troubles.Come now therefore, and I will send thee unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth my people the children of Israel out of Egypt.The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,THE THREAD
Come now therefore, and I will send thee unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth my people the children of Israel out of Egypt.The same roots appear: שָׁלַח (shalach, send or release) and יצא (yatsa, go out or bring forth). Exodus 3:10 holds the sending and bringing out together; Numbers 20:16 shows the people already out, standing at a border.
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