What Does Numbers 22:18 Mean in the King James?
And Balaam answered and said unto the servants of Balak, If Balak would give me his house full of silver and gold, I cannot go beyond the word of the LORD my God, to do less or more.
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 boundary is the LORD’s mouth: a house full of treasure cannot make Balaam cross beyond what is spoken, in either direction.
THE MEANING
A fortune can be set before you, yet it cannot widen what the LORD has spoken. Whether the act is small or great, it remains measured against that utterance.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that enough wealth can buy room to alter what the LORD has spoken.
THE ROOT
לַעֲבֹר
laʿavōr
GROWS FROM
עבר
ʿ-b-r
Cross over; pass through.
“go beyond” in this verse is laʿavōr. The Hebrew phrase פִּי יְהוָה (pi YHWH, “the mouth of the LORD”) is rendered “the word of the LORD” in the KJV, making the crossing a movement beyond a speaking boundary. “To do less or more” closes both directions: neither overreach nor undercutting is permitted.
ALSO GROWS
ʿāvar: Cross, pass over.
עָבַר
This is the verb in the verse: the limit is pictured as something one could cross.
ʿēver: The other side; beyond.
עֵבֶר
The same root names the far side, giving “beyond” the sense of crossing into another side.
maʿăvār: Passage; crossing.
מַעֲבָר
A passage carries someone across a boundary; Balaam says the LORD’s utterance sets the boundary he cannot cross.
כֶּסֶף
kesef
GROWS FROM
כסף
k-s-p
The root carries the verb “to long for, yearn”; כֶּסֶף (kesef) means silver or money.
The offer’s silver shares its root with כָּסַף (kāsaph), “to yearn” or “long for,” so the wealth appears in the language of desire. Even a house filled with what is longed for cannot move the boundary named in Balaam’s answer.
ALSO GROWS
kāsaph: To yearn; long for.
כָּסַף
The shared root brings desire into view beside the silver offered as a reward.
kesef: Silver; money.
כֶּסֶף
This is the wealth Balak’s servants offer, set against the limit Balaam names.
THE PATTERN
What God has spoken sets the limit for human speech and action.
Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you.And Micaiah said, As the LORD liveth, what the LORD saith unto me, that will I speak.Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men.THE THREAD
And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the LORD doth man live.Numbers 22:18 names the limit as the mouth of the LORD, which the KJV renders as “the word of the LORD.” Deuteronomy 8:3 makes the image explicit: the word proceeds from that same mouth, which is also the source by which life is sustained.
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