What Does Numbers 31:34 Mean in the King James?
And threescore and one thousand asses,
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 inventory reaches even the animals: 61,000 living creatures appear as a number in the tally of spoils.
THE MEANING
Here, 61,000 donkeys enter the tally of what has been seized. The verse’s stark arithmetic makes the scale of that taking visible, while its inventory language presents living creatures as counted property.
THE ROOT
חֲמֹרִים
ḥămōrîm
GROWS FROM
חמר
ḥ-m-r
The animal name is traditionally linked to a sense of reddish-brown, though the etymology is uncertain.
“asses” in this verse is ḥămōrîm. The Hebrew name may carry a color association beneath the familiar animal term, but that link is not certain enough to bear the passage’s main meaning. What the verse makes unmistakable is the plural count: the donkeys enter the inventory as a class of seized property.
ALSO GROWS
ḥămōr: Donkey
חֲמוֹר
This is the singular form behind the verse’s plural; the counted 61,000 are individual animals gathered into one tally.
ḥōmer: Clay, mud, or mortar
חֹמֶר
The same consonants appear in this word, sometimes treated as related to the animal name, though the connection is uncertain.
THE PATTERN
A tally of seized goods can reveal how power turns living creatures and people into countable property.
But the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even all the spoil thereof, shalt thou take unto thyself; and thou shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies, which the LORD thy God hath given thee.And all the spoil of these cities, and the cattle, the children of Israel took for a prey unto themselves; but every man they smote with the edge of the sword, until they had destroyed them, neither left they any to breathe.And cinnamon, and odours, and ointments, and frankincense, and wine, and oil, and fine flour, and wheat, and beasts, and sheep, and horses, and chariots, and slaves, and souls of men.THE THREAD
Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh unto thee: he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass.The same Hebrew word, חֲמוֹר (ḥămōr, donkey), appears here as the king’s mount. In Numbers the animals are counted among spoils; here one bears the king, and that shift in role makes the starkness of the inventory stand out.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
You can read any verse this way in the app, keep it as a card, and send it on.
A Bible app where you send verses from your keyboard and in Messages, and every verse has a Deep Dive.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us