What Does Numbers 9:4 Mean in the King James?
And Moses spake unto the children of Israel, that they should keep the passover.
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 Hebrew says to “do the Passover,” making deliverance a practice enacted in the present.
THE MEANING
You meet deliverance as a practice with a shape that can be enacted now. The Hebrew says “to do the Passover,” so release takes a repeatable form. The name Moses means “drawn out,” echoing movement from constriction into spaciousness.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that deliverance belongs only to the past and remembrance can only be passive.
THE ROOT
לַעֲשֹׂת
laʿasot
GROWS FROM
עשה
Do, make, carry out.
“keep” in this verse is laʿasot. The Hebrew infinitive לַעֲשֹׂת (laʿasot, “to do”) makes the phrase concrete: the people are told to do the Passover. Its root also yields עֹשֶׂה (ʿoseh, “one who does”) and מַעֲשֶׂה (maʿaseh, “deed, work”), so keeping this observance carries the shape of an act.
ALSO GROWS
ʿoseh: One who does or makes.
עֹשֶׂה
This form carries the root’s action into the person doing it.
maʿaseh: Deed, work.
מַעֲשֶׂה
The Passover is expressed as something done, with the shape of a deed.
הַפָּסַח
ha-pesaḥ
GROWS FROM
פסח
Pass over, spare.
The noun פֶּסַח (pesaḥ, “Passover”) shares its root with פָּסַח (pāsaḥ, “pass over, spare”). The shared word-shape lets the name of the observance open into the action of sparing and passing over.
ALSO GROWS
pesaḥ: Passover; the Passover observance.
פֶּסַח
This is the form named in the verse, carrying the root into a practice.
pāsaḥ: Pass over, spare.
פָּסַח
This verbal form reveals the movement held inside the name Passover.
מֹשֶׁה
Mosheh
GROWS FROM
משה
Draw out.
The name מֹשֶׁה (Mosheh, “Moses”) echoes מָשָׁה (māshah, “draw out”), the verb associated with his naming. The speaker’s name carries the nature of being drawn out, echoing the movement from constriction toward open space.
ALSO GROWS
māshah: Draw out.
מָשָׁה
This verb gives the name Moses its biblical meaning and links it to the language of deliverance.
māshui: Drawn out.
מָשׁוּי
This form gives the name’s movement a received shape: someone brought out.
THE PATTERN
Deliverance becomes present through an enacted remembrance.
And this day shall be unto you for a memorial; and ye shall keep it a feast to the LORD throughout your generations; ye shall keep it a feast by an ordinance for ever.And he took bread, and gave thanks, and brake it, and gave unto them, saying, This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me.For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord’s death till he come.THE THREAD
And the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where ye are: and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt.Numbers names the practice פֶּסַח (pesaḥ, “Passover”); Exodus 12:13 uses the related verb פָּסַח (pāsaḥ, “pass over, spare”). The shared root opens the feast’s name into its action: deliverance is passage made present.
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