What Does Numbers 9:13 Mean in the King James?
But the man that is clean, and is not in a journey, and forbeareth to keep the passover, even the same soul shall be cut off from among his people: because he brought not the offering of the LORD in his appointed season, that man shall bear his sin.
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 able person’s omission is itself a missed meeting: the offering is an approach at an appointed time, and the person bears the missing.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks into the present wherever a person is able to answer an appointed encounter: being clean and unimpeded does not make withholding neutral. It places the missed approach and its consequence on the person who withholds it, who bears the missing and is cut off from among the people.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that being clean or free from hardship makes a deliberate refusal harmless.
THE ROOT
בְּמוֹעֲדוֹ
bemoʿado
GROWS FROM
יעד
y-ʿ-d
To appoint, designate, or set a meeting; related forms refer to its fixed time.
The appointed season is a set meeting, not just a convenient point on a calendar. The verse locates the refusal at a time already marked for encounter.
ALSO GROWS
yaʿad: appoint, designate
יָעַד
The verb shows that the time is deliberately set, making the omission a refusal of a known appointment.
moʿadim: appointed times, festivals
מוֹעֲדִים
This plural form names recurring set times, placing Passover within an appointed rhythm.
קָרְבָּן
qorbān
GROWS FROM
קרב
q-r-b
To approach, come near.
The noun translated offering belongs to the word family of coming near. The verse presents the withheld offering as a withheld approach at the appointed meeting.
ALSO GROWS
qārab: draw near, approach
קָרַב
This verb makes the approach within the offering visible.
qārōb: near, close
קָרוֹב
The related word for nearness reveals the movement carried by the offering: bringing near.
חטאו
ḥaṭṭāʾô
GROWS FROM
חטא
ḥ-ṭ-ʾ
To miss, err; by extension, to sin.
The phrase translated “bear his sin” uses a word family that also carries the sense of missing. The verse gives that missing weight: it remains with the person who withheld the appointed approach.
ALSO GROWS
ḥāṭāʾ: miss, err, sin
חָטָא
The verb shows the root’s basic sense of missing, which gives “his sin” a concrete shape here.
ḥaṭṭāʾt: sin, offense; also an offering for sin
חַטָּאת
The same root names both the offense and an offering associated with it, keeping the idea of missing connected to a response to it.
THE PATTERN
When an appointed good is within reach, scripture treats withholding a response as consequential.
Three times in a year shall all thy males appear before the LORD thy God in the place which he shall choose; in the feast of unleavened bread, and in the feast of weeks, and in the feast of tabernacles: and they shall not appear before the LORD empty: Every man shall give as he is able, according to the blessing of the LORD thy God which he hath given thee.Seven days shall ye eat unleavened bread; even the first day ye shall put away leaven out of your houses: for whosoever eateth leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that soul shall be cut off from Israel.Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.THE THREAD
Seven days shall ye eat unleavened bread; even the first day ye shall put away leaven out of your houses: for whosoever eateth leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that soul shall be cut off from Israel.Both verses use נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh, living person) and כרת (karat, cut off) in a Passover setting. Exodus makes the shared boundary visible: Numbers applies that same language to the person who declines the appointed Passover.
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