What Does Numbers 23:24 Mean in the King James?
Behold, the people shall rise up as a great lion, and lift up himself as a young lion: he shall not lie down until he eat of the prey, and drink the blood of the slain.
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 Hebrew word for “prey” carries the tearing of the kill inside it: the people rise like lions and stay awake until that violence is complete.
THE MEANING
The people rise with the force of a lion and do not lie down before prey is eaten and the blood of the slain is drunk. The image holds their power as predatory and bloodied, carrying the rising all the way through the kill.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the idea that this lion-like power is only a noble image of courage: its own sentence carries the image through to prey and blood.
THE ROOT
טֶרֶף
ṭereph
GROWS FROM
טרף
Tear, seize, or tear apart.
The word translated “prey” is טֶרֶף (ṭereph), prey or food taken by tearing. The verse’s eating and blood are already bound into the image of the kill.
ALSO GROWS
ṭāraph: To tear apart or seize as prey.
טָרַף
The action inside the root makes the people’s lion-like image bodily and violent.
ṭereph: Prey; food taken by tearing.
טֶרֶף
This is the word used for “prey” here, joining the lion’s rise to the violence that follows.
יָקוּם
yāqūm
GROWS FROM
קום
Rise or stand; come into a standing position.
The verb translated “rise up” shares its root with words for standing and establishing. Its movement is a people coming into a forceful stance, echoed by the next verb’s image of lifting.
ALSO GROWS
qûm: To rise or stand.
קוּם
The verse uses this root for the people’s rising as a lion.
hēqîm: To raise up or establish.
הֵקִים
This form shows that the root’s movement can also carry the sense of bringing something into a firm standing.
THE PATTERN
Lion imagery makes power visible as a force that rises or holds its ground, and in the prey passages that force continues through the kill.
Judah is a lion’s whelp: from the prey, my son, thou art gone up: he stooped down, he couched as a lion, and as an old lion; who shall rouse him up?For thus hath the LORD spoken unto me, Like as the lion and the young lion roaring on his prey, when a multitude of shepherds is called forth against him, he will not be afraid of their voice, nor abase himself for the noise of them: so shall the LORD of hosts come down to fight for mount Zion, and for the hill thereof.And one of the elders saith unto me, Weep not: behold, the Lion of the tribe of Juda, the Root of David, hath prevailed to open the book, and to loose the seven seals thereof.THE THREAD
For thus hath the LORD spoken unto me, Like as the lion and the young lion roaring on his prey, when a multitude of shepherds is called forth against him, he will not be afraid of their voice, nor abase himself for the noise of them: so shall the LORD of hosts come down to fight for mount Zion, and for the hill thereof.In Hebrew, “prey” here is טֶרֶף (ṭereph), from the same root, טרף, as the prey in Numbers. Isaiah shows the lion refusing to yield over its prey under threat; Numbers carries the image through to eating and drinking blood.
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