What Does Numbers 20:21 Mean in the King James?
Thus Edom refused to give Israel passage through his border: wherefore Israel turned away from him.
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 moves from crossing to turning aside: a denied passage changes direction without ending movement.
THE MEANING
The border stays closed, and the movement bends away from it. A blocked way changes the route, but movement itself continues.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that a closed way leaves no movement possible; the verse ends with a turn away.
THE ROOT
עֲבֹר
ʿăvōr
GROWS FROM
עבר
ʿ-b-r
cross, pass over or through
The phrase translated as “passage” is built from the verb “to cross.” The request is for a crossing through the land, and the verse’s final movement turns aside when that crossing is refused.
ALSO GROWS
ʿāvar: to cross, pass over or through
עָבַר
This is the verb behind the requested passage: a route across a boundary.
maʿavār: a crossing or passage
מַעֲבָר
This noun makes the connection explicit: the crossing itself is what has been withheld.
נְתֹן
nĕtōn
GROWS FROM
נתן
n-t-n
give, set or place
Passage is expressed as something Edom can give: the wording places the crossing within an act of granting. Its refusal closes access at the border.
ALSO GROWS
nātan: to give, set or place
נָתַן
The root holds both giving and setting something in place, fitting the question of who grants access through a border.
mattānāh: a gift or present
מַתָּנָה
The gift noun grows from the same root, showing how giving is the seed shared by both ordinary gifts and the requested passage.
וַיֵּט
wayyēṭ
GROWS FROM
נטה
n-ṭ-h
stretch out, extend, incline or turn aside
“turned away” in this verse is wayyēṭ. The final verb comes from a root of extending and inclining, so the turn is a change in the line of movement. The refused crossing is followed by a route bending away from Edom.
ALSO GROWS
nāṭāh: to stretch out, incline or turn aside
נָטָה
This verb contains the verse’s final motion: Israel inclines away from the closed route.
maṭṭeh: staff, rod; tribe
מַטֶּה
The staff and tribe are branches of the same root, carrying the sense of something extended or a line that reaches outward.
THE PATTERN
A constricted route is not the whole horizon: movement can turn toward room.
And he removed from thence, and digged another well; and for that they strove not: and he called the name of it Rehoboth; and he said, For now the LORD hath made room for us, and we shall be fruitful in the land.He brought me forth also into a large place; he delivered me, because he delighted in me.And they passing by Mysia came down to Troas.THE THREAD
Let us pass, I pray thee, through thy country: we will not pass through the fields, or through the vineyards, neither will we drink of the water of the wells: we will go by the king’s high way, we will not turn to the right hand nor to the left, until we have passed thy borders.The same root, עָבַר (ʿāvar), meaning “to cross or pass through,” appears in this request and in the denied passage. The request describes a constrained crossing along the king’s highway, without entering the fields, vineyards, or wells.
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