What Does Numbers 21:1 Mean in the King James?
And when king Arad the Canaanite, which dwelt in the south, heard tell that Israel came by the way of the spies; then he fought against Israel, and took some of them prisoners.
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 Hebrew for “took prisoners” makes captivity an act of taking people out of their path.
THE MEANING
You see movement become exposed: a people travel, their passage is heard, and force turns against them until some are taken. The sentence keeps those removed from the group in view; the journey includes both a route and the violence that interrupts it.
THE ROOT
וַיִּשְׁבְּ
vayyishb
GROWS FROM
שׁבה
שׁבה (shavah): to take captive, to seize and carry away.
“took some of them prisoners” in this verse is vayyishb. The same root names the captor’s act and the captured person’s condition. The verb keeps the seizure audible inside “took prisoners”: people are taken from among their own and carried away.
ALSO GROWS
shavah: to take captive
שָׁבָה
This active form names the act done to the people traveling with Israel.
nishbah: to be taken captive; one captured
נִשְׁבָּה
This passive form turns attention to the person bearing the seizure.
וַיִּלָּחֶם
vayillachem
GROWS FROM
לחם
לָחַם (lacham): to fight or engage in battle.
“fought” in this verse is vayillachem. The verse moves from battle to seizure: the attack does not stop at opposition but takes people from the traveling group. Hebrew’s battle word shares its root with the word for warfare, מִלְחָמָה (milchamah).
ALSO GROWS
lacham: to fight or battle
לָחַם
This verb names the king’s direct action against Israel.
milchamah: war; battle
מִלְחָמָה
This noun shares the consonants ל־ח־ם and places the single attack within the language of warfare.
THE PATTERN
Conflict can turn a person’s place among a people into captivity.
And they took Lot, Abram’s brother’s son, who dwelt in Sodom, and his goods, and departed.But the Philistines took him, and put out his eyes, and brought him down to Gaza, and bound him with fetters of brass; and he did grind in the prison house.And because he saw it pleased the Jews, he proceeded further to take Peter also. (Then were the days of unleavened bread.)THE THREAD
When thou goest forth to war against thine enemies, and the LORD thy God hath delivered them into thine hands, and thou hast taken them captive,Numbers’ וַיִּשְׁבְּ (vayyishb, “took captive”) and Deuteronomy’s וְשָׁבִיתָ (veshavita, “taken captive”) share the root שׁבה (shavah, “to take captive”). The same root places captivity on opposite sides of conflict, revealing the act beneath the changing roles.
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