What Does Numbers 26:11 Mean in the King James?

Notwithstanding the children of Korah died not.

Numbers 26:11 · 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

Korah’s children carry his name, but they do not share his death.

THE MEANING

A family can carry a name without collapsing into the fate of the person who bears it. The children remain alive, distinct from their father’s ending. Their survival stands plainly inside the sentence.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

The belief that a parent’s judgment must consume everyone bearing that parent’s name is undone here.

THE ROOT

בְּנֵי

benei

GROWS FROM

בנה

⁨בָּנָה⁩ (banah): to build or establish.

⁨בְּנֵי⁩ (benei, sons of) is the plural construct of ⁨בֵּן⁩ (ben, son), a word associated with ⁨בָּנָה⁩ (banah, to build). That word family pictures children as part of a continuing structure; here, the structure remains even when its father dies.

ALSO GROWS

ben: Son or child.

בֵּן

It is the singular form behind ⁨בְּנֵי⁩, keeping the verse’s focus on the children as distinct people.

binyan: A building or structure.

בִּנְיָן

This branch echoes the image of a family line continuing beyond one person.

מֵתוּ

metu

GROWS FROM

מות

⁨מוּת⁩ (mut): to die or be dead.

“died” in this verse is metu. The root names death directly, and ⁨לֹא⁩ (lo, not) negates it outright. The sons are not described through a softened image of escape: the sentence says they do not die.

ALSO GROWS

māvet: Death.

מָוֶת

The noun makes the same root’s central meaning explicit.

met: A dead or deceased person.

מֵת

This form names the state that the verse says the children do not enter.

קֹרַח

Qoraḥ

GROWS FROM

קרח

⁨קָרַח⁩ (qaraḥ): to become bald; the same consonants also appear in the word for frost or ice.

The name carries the root’s linked images of baldness and frost: a surface stripped bare, or made hard with ice. The children bear Korah’s name, yet the sentence keeps their fate distinct from his.

ALSO GROWS

qereach: Bald or bare of hair.

קֵרֵחַ

This branch supplies one sense carried by the consonants in Korah’s name.

qeraḥ: Frost or ice.

קֶרַח

This branch gives the same consonants a second, hardened surface image.

THE PATTERN

A parent’s wrongdoing or judgment does not automatically become the fate of the child.

The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers: every man shall be put to death for his own sin.

Deuteronomy 24:16 · KJVThe verse makes the boundary explicit: a parent and child do not bear each other’s punishment.

The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him.

Ezekiel 18:20 · KJVThe son’s outcome remains distinct from the father’s, just as Korah’s children remain distinct from his death.

Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.

John 9:3 · KJVThe man’s life is not reduced to his parents’ supposed guilt; he stands as a person in his own right.

THE THREAD

I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the LORD.

Psalm 118:17 · KJV

The phrase “I shall not die” uses the same Hebrew root ⁨מוּת⁩ (mut, die) as “died not” here. Numbers speaks of a family that lives; this verse voices that same refusal of death from one person’s life.

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