What Does Numbers 21:5 Mean in the King James?
And the people spake against God, and against Moses, Wherefore have ye brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? for there is no bread, neither is there any water; and our soul loatheth this light bread.
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 living appetite can reject the very provision sustaining it and experience the way out of constriction as a path to death.
THE MEANING
You can be moving out of constriction and still experience the present as a threat to life. Your living self can reject what sustains it, naming the bread as intolerable while your complaint says there is no bread. The movement toward spaciousness can feel like death before it feels like freedom.
THE ROOT
נַפְשֵׁנוּ
nafshenu
GROWS FROM
נ־פ־שׁ
n-p-sh
the living self: the person as a living being, including its appetite.
Nefesh reaches beyond a private inner soul to the living person and that person’s appetite. Here the whole living self is the one recoiling from food.
ALSO GROWS
nefesh: living being, person, or appetite.
נֶפֶשׁ
The verse’s nefesh is the living self whose appetite finds the bread loathsome.
yinnaphesh: be refreshed or recover (Exodus 23:12).
יִנָּפֵשׁ
The same root also names renewal of the living self, sharpening the contrast between nourishment and the appetite that rejects it.
קָצָה
qatsah
GROWS FROM
ק־ו־ץ
q-w-ts
to feel loathing, recoil, or become weary of something.
“loatheth” in this verse is qatsah. This root gives the complaint a bodily edge: the bread is experienced as intolerable. Its range can shade from disgust into distress, more than simply wanting different food.
ALSO GROWS
vayyaqutsu: they were grieved or repelled (Exodus 1:12).
וַיָּקֻצוּ
The same root describes a presence becoming hard to bear, showing the force of the recoil in this verse.
vayyaqots: he or it was distressed (Numbers 22:3, of Moab).
וַיָּקָץ
Here the root’s aversion shades into distress, connecting disgust with the feeling that something has become intolerable.
הַקְּלֹקֵל
haqəlōqēl
GROWS FROM
ק־ל־ל
q-l-l
to be light or slight; to treat as insignificant.
The bread is described as too slight to count. The same consonants carry the act of making light of something, an echo beside the people’s words against God.
ALSO GROWS
qal: light or slight.
קַל
This is the basic sense behind calling the bread light: it feels insubstantial to the speaker.
qillel: treat as light or insignificant; curse.
קִלֵּל
The root’s movement from making light of something to cursing echoes the verse’s paired contempt for the bread and speech against God.
THE PATTERN
When life feels constrained, the presence of provision does not guarantee that the living self experiences it as nourishment.
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 had rained down manna upon them to eat, and had given them of the corn of heaven.But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.THE THREAD
The full soul loatheth an honeycomb; but to the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet.Both verses use נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh), the living self and its appetite. Proverbs shows appetite changing how food is experienced; Numbers gives that same living self a voice that finds its bread intolerable.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us