What Does Numbers 27:3 Mean in the King James?
Our father died in the wilderness, and he was not in the company of them that gathered themselves together against the LORD in the company of Korah; but died in his own sin, and had no sons.
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 daughters name their father’s death as his own missing, distinguishing it from joining Korah’s rebellion.
THE MEANING
The verse names a distinction that remains alive now: one person’s missing is not the same as belonging to a collective revolt. And “no sons” does not mean “no children”, the daughters themselves are present in the family they name.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A person can stand apart from a collective rebellion and still own a personal missing. “No sons” does not mean “no children”; the daughters themselves are present.
THE ROOT
בְּחֶטְאוֹ
be-chet’o
GROWS FROM
חטא
chata
To miss, or miss the mark.
“sin” in this verse is be-chet’o. The phrase בְּחֶטְאוֹ (be-chet’o, “in his own missing”) makes the fault his own without making him part of Korah’s camp. The same root describes a sling that does not miss its target, so the word carries a concrete image of missing while retaining the seriousness of the death it names.
ALSO GROWS
lo yaḥati: Not miss the target.
לֹא יַחֲטִא
Judges 20:16 uses this root for a sling that does not miss, showing the concrete sense beneath the word for sin.
ḥaṭṭā’t: Missing; an offering for the missing.
חַטָּאת
This branch keeps the same root in view: the verse’s “own sin” belongs to a word family built around missing.
THE PATTERN
A person’s own missing is distinguished from the guilt of the wider community or family.
And they fell upon their faces, and said, O God, the God of the spirits of all flesh, shall one man sin, and wilt thou be wroth with all the congregation?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.So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God.THE THREAD
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 uses the same Hebrew root חטא (chata, meaning “miss”) in “sinneth,” then draws a boundary between a child and a parent’s crookedness. Beside the daughters’ words, the shared root makes the line precise: their father owns his missing, while his daughters are not treated as extensions of it.
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