What Does Numbers 24:22 Mean in the King James?
Nevertheless the Kenite shall be wasted, until Asshur shall carry thee away captive.
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 pairs being consumed with being taken captive, so the verse’s violence moves from devastation to forced removal.
THE MEANING
This verse holds the reader before a brutal sequence: a people is consumed, then carried away captive by Asshur. The violence remains explicit: devastation is followed by forced removal from home. It speaks to how conquest can strip a community of both life and place.
THE ROOT
לְבָעֵר
ləvaʿēr
GROWS FROM
ב־ע־ר
b-ʿ-r
Burn, consume; also clear away.
The root brings the image of consuming fire beneath “wasted.” It can also describe clearing something away, so destruction carries the further edge of removal.
ALSO GROWS
baʿar: To burn or consume.
בָּעַר
This is the root verb behind לְבָעֵר, giving the devastation the image of being consumed.
biʿēr: To clear out or remove.
בִּעֵר
This related form shows how the root can hold destruction and removal together.
תִּשְׁבֶּךָּ
tishbekha
GROWS FROM
ש־ב־ה
sh-b-h
Take captive; seize people and carry them away.
“carry thee away captive” in this verse is tishbekha. The same root names the act of seizure and the captive state that follows. The verse’s removal is not an abstract change of place: a people are seized into captivity.
ALSO GROWS
shevi: Captivity.
שְׁבִי
This noun shares the root with the verb in the verse, naming the condition produced by the taking.
shavuy: A captive.
שָׁבוּי
This form names the person made captive by the action expressed in תִּשְׁבֶּךָּ.
THE PATTERN
A people’s high refuge cannot place them beyond the reach of being brought down and removed.
Thy terribleness hath deceived thee, and the pride of thine heart, O thou that dwellest in the clefts of the rock, that holdest the height of the hill: though thou shouldest make thy nest as high as the eagle, I will bring thee down from thence, saith the LORD.Though thou exalt thyself as the eagle, and though thou set thy nest among the stars, thence will I bring thee down, saith the LORD.And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations: and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.THE THREAD
For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion.Numbers uses שָׁבָה (shavah, take captive) for the seizure; Psalm 137 uses the same root in “carried us away captive.” Numbers names the taking, while the Psalm gives the captive condition a first-person voice.
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