What Does Numbers 23:4 Mean in the King James?
And God met Balaam: and he said unto him, I have prepared seven altars, and I have offered upon every altar a bullock and a ram.
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
Balaam names his own arranging and offering, but the verb of meeting makes God the actor in the encounter.
THE MEANING
The verse places Balaam’s preparation beside an encounter whose subject is God. The altars and animals are what he arranges and offers; the meeting is what God does. That distinction remains present: what you set in place and what meets you are not the same kind of act.
THE ROOT
וַיִּקָּר
wayyiqqār
GROWS FROM
קרה
To meet or encounter; to happen or come to pass.
The root holds meeting alongside what happens or befalls, so “met” carries the sense of an encounter that comes to pass. The verse names God as the one who meets Balaam, while Balaam reports what he has arranged.
ALSO GROWS
miqreh: Event, occurrence, or chance.
מִקְרֶה
This noun shares the root’s sense of what happens, linking an encounter with an event that comes to pass.
niqrah: Was met with, encountered.
נִקְרָה
This form appears in Exodus 3:18, where the people say the LORD has met with them; the root can describe an encounter received by a whole people.
וָאַעַל
vaʾaʿal
GROWS FROM
עלה
To rise, ascend, or go up.
“offered” in this verse is vaʾaʿal. Balaam’s verb is causative: he says he made a bull and a ram ascend. The offering is pictured as rising, while the meeting is still named as God’s act.
ALSO GROWS
ʿolah: Burnt offering; literally, an offering that ascends.
עֹלָה
This noun names the kind of offering described by the rising verb in the verse.
ʿaliyyah: Ascent or going up.
עֲלִיָּה
This branch keeps the upward movement visible in the Hebrew word family behind “offered.”
THE PATTERN
Scripture repeatedly names divine encounter through God’s initiative: God meets, comes, or calls.
And Jacob awaked out of his sleep, and he said, Surely the LORD is in this place; and I knew it not.And the LORD came, and stood, and called as at other times, Samuel, Samuel. Then Samuel answered, Speak; for thy servant heareth.He saw in a vision evidently about the ninth hour of the day an angel of God coming in to him, and saying unto him, Cornelius.THE THREAD
And they shall hearken to thy voice: and thou shalt come, thou and the elders of Israel, unto the king of Egypt, and ye shall say unto him, The LORD God of the Hebrews hath met with us: and now let us go, we beseech thee, three days’ journey into the wilderness, that we may sacrifice to the LORD our God.The root קרה (qarah, meet or encounter) is behind “met” here and “hath met with us” in Exodus. The same word extends from Balaam’s individual encounter to a people naming their encounter with the LORD.
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