What Does Numbers 22:15 Mean in the King James?
And Balak sent yet again princes, more, and more honourable than they.
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
Balak’s renewed appeal adds weight to the messengers, revealing honor here as social weight around the same request.
THE MEANING
An appeal can return with more status attached. Greater rank makes the request feel heavier, while the repeated sending shows that its core has not changed. The verse makes visible the weight a messenger’s standing can add to a message.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A request gains rightful authority simply because more honored people carry it.
THE ROOT
וְנִכְבָּדִים
ve-nikhbadim
GROWS FROM
כבד
k-b-d
To be heavy or weighty; by extension, to be honored or given weight.
The word rendered “honourable” grows from the same root as heaviness and כָּבוֹד (kavod), meaning weight, honor, or glory. These princes are socially weighty, so the renewed appeal increases the weight carried by its messengers.
ALSO GROWS
kavod: Weight, honor, glory.
כָּבוֹד
It shares the root’s sense of weight and shows why honor can make these messengers seem more consequential.
kaved: Heavy, weighty.
כָּבֵד
This is the root’s concrete sense: the princes’ rank makes the appeal feel heavier.
שְׁלֹחַ
shĕlōaḥ
GROWS FROM
שלח
sh-l-ḥ
To send forth, release, or let go.
“sent” in this verse is shĕlōaḥ. The verse presents Balak’s response as another sending forth. The root also carries the sense of release, so the act of sending opens toward movement outward, even as this particular sending intensifies pressure.
ALSO GROWS
shaliach: A messenger; one who is sent.
שָׁלִיחַ
The princes are themselves people sent to bear Balak’s appeal.
shilluaḥ: A sending away or release.
שִׁלּוּחַ
This branch reveals the root’s wider movement of sending something out or letting it go.
THE PATTERN
A message gains public weight through the authority and standing carried by the one who sends or bears it.
So she wrote letters in Ahab’s name, and sealed them with his seal, and sent the letters unto the elders and to the nobles that were in his city, dwelling with Naboth.And the king of Syria said, Go to, go, and I will send a letter unto the king of Israel. And he departed, and took with him ten talents of silver, and six thousand pieces of gold, and ten changes of raiment.And on the morrow, when Agrippa was come, and Bernice, with great pomp, and was entered into the place of hearing, with the chief captains, and principal men of the city, at Festus’ commandment Paul was brought forth.THE THREAD
Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.The same root, כבד (k-b-d), links the princes’ “honour” to the idea of weight. Exodus uses that root for honoring parents, showing the shared image beneath both verses: to honor is to give weight.
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