What Does Numbers 22:4 Mean in the King James?
And Moab said unto the elders of Midian, Now shall this company lick up all that are round about us, as the ox licketh up the grass of the field. And Balak the son of Zippor was king of the Moabites at that time.
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
Fear does not only see an advancing crowd; it turns the whole world around it into food.
THE MEANING
When a gathered force feels larger than your world, fear pictures it as a mouth that will consume all that surrounds you. The ox image gives that fear its shape: a field stripped bare, not merely a single loss.
THE ROOT
יְלַחֲכוּ
yelaḥăkû
GROWS FROM
לחך
l-ḥ-k
to lick or lap up; to consume by licking
“lick up” in this verse is yelaḥăkû. The same root describes fire licking up water and dogs licking blood. Moab’s sentence imagines the gathered people as a force that leaves nothing around them untouched, while the ox makes that fear concrete.
ALSO GROWS
lāḥăḵāh: licked up
לָחֲכָה
In 1 Kings 18:38, fire licks up the water in the trench, showing the verb can describe complete consumption.
yelaḥēḵû: they shall lick
יְלַחֵכוּ
In 1 Kings 21:19, dogs lick blood; the same verb carries the image of what remains being taken up.
סְבִיבֹתֵינוּ
sevivōtēnû
GROWS FROM
סבב
s-b-b
to turn, circle, or surround
“round about us” in this verse is sevivōtēnû. The verse names the surrounding space as the very thing to be consumed. The root’s circling sense gives Moab’s fear a perimeter, with every direction imagined as part of the loss.
ALSO GROWS
sāḇîḇ: around
סָבִיב
This form names the space around the speaker as a ring, matching the fear of losing everything nearby.
sāḇaḇ: to circle, go around, or surround
סָבַב
The verb makes the surrounding space active: it is the full perimeter that Moab imagines being consumed.
הַקָּהָל
haqqāhāl
GROWS FROM
קהל
q-h-l
to gather or assemble
“company” in this verse is haqqāhāl. The word points to a gathered body, not a lone attacker. The fear grows from a crowd imagined as one advancing mass, then as a mouth that empties its surroundings.
ALSO GROWS
qāhāl: assembly or congregation
קָהָל
The noun names people gathered together, making the threat collective in the verse.
haqhel: assemble or gather
הַקְהֵל
Deuteronomy 31:12 uses the same root for gathering the people, showing that the root names both the assembled community and the act of assembling.
THE PATTERN
Scripture gives total threat the shape of consumption: what threatens a people is pictured as eating them, swallowing them, or devouring what is newly alive.
Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge? who eat up my people as they eat bread, and call not upon the LORD.Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon hath devoured me, he hath crushed me, he hath made me an empty vessel, he hath swallowed me up like a dragon, he hath filled his belly with my delicates, he hath cast me out.And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born.THE THREAD
Then the fire of the LORD fell, and consumed the burnt sacrifice, and the wood, and the stones, and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench.The same root used for the ox’s grazing describes fire licking up water. That wider use reveals the force of the image: “lick up” names what disappears completely, whether the object is water or the field Moab fears losing.
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