What Does Numbers 23:28 Mean in the King James?

And Balak brought Balaam unto the top of Peor, that looketh toward Jeshimon.

Numbers 23:28 · KJV

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

Jeshimon is more than a place-name: it carries the root of desolation, so the horizon Balaam faces is named by the very emptiness it holds.

THE MEANING

The verse sets you on a chosen height and points your gaze toward a place whose name carries desolation. The landscape is not a blank backdrop; its name makes emptiness part of the scene’s meaning.

THE ROOT

יְשִׁימוֹן

Yeshimon

GROWS FROM

שׁמם

To be desolate, devastated, or laid waste.

Jeshimon carries the root of desolation, so the horizon is not merely an unnamed wilderness. Its name makes emptiness part of the landscape Balaam faces.

ALSO GROWS

shemamah: Desolation, wasteland.

שְׁמָמָה

This noun shares the root in Jeshimon and makes the place-name’s association with desolation plain.

shamem: To be desolate or devastated.

שָׁמֵם

This verb shows desolation as a condition of ruin, giving the name more weight than a neutral location marker.

THE PATTERN

A height becomes a narrative vantage when the text names the land it brings into view.

And from Bamoth in the valley, that is in the country of Moab, to the top of Pisgah, which looketh toward Jeshimon.

Numbers 21:20 · KJVLike this verse, the height is defined by the landscape it faces: Jeshimon.

And Moses went up from the plains of Moab unto the mountain of Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, that is over against Jericho. And the LORD shewed him all the land of Gilead, unto Dan,

Deuteronomy 34:1 · KJVThe height becomes a vantage from which the land is brought into view.

Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them;

Matthew 4:8 · KJVThe mountain functions as a chosen vantage from which a whole realm comes into view.

THE THREAD

Thy holy cities are a wilderness, Zion is a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation.

Isaiah 64:10 · KJV

Jeshimon carries the root of desolation, and Isaiah uses that same root to name Jerusalem a desolation. The shared root lets the wasteland here echo a desolation that can overtake even a city.

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