What Does Numbers 20:4 Mean in the King James?
And why have ye brought up the congregation of the LORD into this wilderness, that we and our cattle should die there?
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 phrase “congregation of the LORD” names an appointed gathering even as its members see the wilderness as a place where they and their livelihood will die.
THE MEANING
When the way ahead feels barren, fear can turn an untraveled path into a verdict: you and everything in your care will die there. Yet the people voicing that fear are still named as the LORD’s gathered people. The verse holds both truths together: the fear is real, and its prediction remains a prediction.
THE ROOT
עֵדָה
'edah
GROWS FROM
יָעַד
yāʿad
Appoint, designate, or meet at a set time or place.
“congregation” in this verse is 'edah. The Hebrew עֵדָה (‘edah, appointed gathering) is commonly traced to יָעַד (yāʿad, appoint or meet at a set place). The verse holds an appointed assembly inside its own name even as its members imagine the wilderness as the end of them.
ALSO GROWS
mo'ed: Appointed time, appointed place, or meeting.
מוֹעֵד
It carries the same sense of a gathering or encounter set in place.
yāʿad: To appoint, designate, or meet.
יָעַד
The verb shows the purposeful setting that lies beneath the word for congregation.
THE PATTERN
Fear can turn an uncertain path into a death sentence before the outcome is known.
And the children of Israel said unto them, Would to God we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh pots, and when we did eat bread to the full; for ye have brought us forth into this wilderness, to kill this whole assembly with hunger.And he was in the hinder part of the ship, asleep on a pillow: and they awake him, and say unto him, Master, carest thou not that we perish?THE THREAD
Remember thy congregation, which thou hast purchased of old; the rod of thine inheritance, which thou hast redeemed; this mount Zion, wherein thou hast dwelt.The Hebrew word for “congregation” here is עֵדָה (‘edah, appointed gathering), the same word carried in Numbers. Numbers gives that gathering’s fear-filled question; the psalm names it as still held in remembrance.
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