What Does Numbers 21:11 Mean in the King James?
And they journeyed from Oboth, and pitched at Ije-abarim, in the wilderness which is before Moab, toward the sunrising.
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
Abarim carries the sense of “beyond,” so even this encampment is named from the far side of a crossing.
THE MEANING
Movement and rest belong to one passage: you set out, then make camp, while the crossing continues. Abarim carries the sense of “beyond,” and the scene faces the sunrise, so this stop holds both a threshold and a direction.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A pause means the journey has ended. Here, pitching camp is one station on a route whose name still points beyond.
THE ROOT
עֲבָרִים
ʿăvārîm
GROWS FROM
עבר
ʿavar
Pass over, cross; by extension, what lies across or beyond.
Abarim is formed from עבר (ʿavar, to cross or pass over), and its place-name sense is “regions beyond.” The camp itself carries the language of crossing: the journey pauses at a place whose name leans past the present boundary.
ALSO GROWS
ʿāvar: To pass over or cross.
עָבַר
This action gives the place-name its sense of passage toward what lies beyond.
ʿēver: The far side, or a region beyond.
עֵבֶר
This branch makes the name feel like a threshold: the camp is located in relation to what lies across it.
THE PATTERN
A crossing advances in stages, with each station still facing the larger passage.
And the LORD went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud, to lead them the way; and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light; to go by day and night:Who passing through the valley of Baca make it a well; the rain also filleth the pools.These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.THE THREAD
And Abram passed through the land unto the place of Sichem, unto the plain of Moreh. And the Canaanite was then in the land.The phrase “passed through” uses עבר (ʿavar, to cross or pass over), the same root carried in Abarim. In Genesis it names the crossing action; here it becomes part of the place-name, so the landscape itself holds the motion.
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