What Does Numbers 35:14 Mean in the King James?
Ye shall give three cities on this side Jordan, and three cities shall ye give in the land of Canaan, which shall be cities of refuge.
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
Refuge is placed on both sides of the boundary, so a person fleeing danger has somewhere concrete to arrive.
THE MEANING
A person who has caused a death unintentionally is given a place to flee. Those places are set across both sides of the Jordan, making refuge reachable within the land. The repeated “give” makes this shelter something placed in the landscape, ready to receive someone in motion.
THE ROOT
מִקְלָט
miqlāṭ a place
GROWS FROM
קלט
קלט (q-l-ṭ; qālaṭ) carries the sense of receiving or taking in.
The word for refuge is connected to receiving: the city is a place that takes in the person fleeing toward it. The verse’s six cities are not just marked on a map; they are placed as receiving places across the boundary.
ALSO GROWS
qālaṭ: to receive or take in
קָלַט
This verbal sense opens refuge as an arrival into shelter, not simply distance from danger.
miqlāṭ: a refuge or place of refuge
מִקְלָט
The noun names the place that receives the fugitive, giving the verse’s distributed cities their function.
נתן
nātan to give
GROWS FROM
נתן
נתן (n-t-n; nātan) means to give, set, or place.
“give” in this verse is nātan to give. The verb is repeated for the cities on each side of the Jordan. Refuge is given by being set in place across the land; provision takes a concrete, reachable form.
ALSO GROWS
nātan: to give, set, or place
נָתַן
The same verb names both acts of providing the cities and placing refuge within reach.
mattānāh: a gift
מַתָּנָה
This related form makes the provision’s given quality visible: refuge is assigned as a place, not left as an abstraction.
THE PATTERN
Refuge is established in reachable places before a person in danger needs to flee.
And if a man lie not in wait, but God deliver him into his hand; then I will appoint thee a place whither he shall flee.Thou shalt separate three cities for thee in the midst of thy land, which the LORD thy God giveth thee to possess it.That by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us:THE THREAD
Speak to the children of Israel, saying, Appoint out for you cities of refuge, whereof I spake unto you by the hand of Moses:Joshua uses the same word, מִקְלָט (miqlāṭ, refuge), found here. Numbers describes the cities spread across the land; Joshua names them as appointed places where the fleeing person can be received.
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