What Does Numbers 11:20 Mean?
"But for a whole month, until it comes out of your nostrils and becomes nausea to you, because you have spurned the LORD who is among you, and have wept before his face, saying, 'Why did we come out of Egypt?'"
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
But even a whole month, until it come out at your nostrils, and it be loathsome unto you: because that ye have despised the LORD which is among you, and have wept before him, saying, Why came we forth out of Egypt?THE KEY
The craving is filled until it turns loathsome because the LORD already in your midst has been rejected.
THE MEANING
When you refuse the LORD already in your midst, the craving you clutch can be filled until it becomes loathsome. Meat comes out through the nostrils: the verse holds the bodily excess plainly, while showing that abundance cannot mend a deeper refusal. The question about Egypt reveals how pain can make constriction seem preferable to a freedom whose provision you do not receive.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie is that getting what you crave will prove you were right to reject what is present. Here, abundance turns repulsive and exposes that fulfillment cannot heal a refusal of the LORD in your midst.
THE ROOT
מְאַסְתֶּם
ma'astem
GROWS FROM
מאס
To reject, refuse, or regard as unwanted.
“spurned” in this verse is ma'astem. The verb translated “despised” carries the force of rejection: the verse names a refusal of the LORD, not merely frustration with the food. Its branches also describe what is rejected, revealing how dissatisfaction with what is present can become a refusal of the presence itself.
ALSO GROWS
ma'asu: They rejected.
מָאָסוּ
The same verb appears in 1 Samuel 8:7, where the people’s rejection is directed toward the LORD’s rule.
ma'us: Rejected, refused.
מָאוּס
This form appears in the “stone which the builders refused” in Psalm 118:22; what is refused may still be central to what is being built.
בְּקִרְבְּכֶם
beqirbekhem
GROWS FROM
קרב
To come near or approach; in the noun קֶרֶב (qerev), the midst or interior.
“Among you” comes from the language of nearness and the inward midst. The LORD is not described as distant: the rejection takes place alongside a presence already there.
ALSO GROWS
qarav: Draw near, approach.
קָרַב
The same root makes nearness an action, sharpening the contrast between the LORD’s presence and the people’s refusal.
qorban: Drawing near.
קָרְבָּן
This related word for an offering carries the sense of approach; here, the root’s nearness is already present in the midst.
THE PATTERN
A desire that rejects God’s nearness can be granted until abundance reveals its emptiness.
But they craved a craving in the wilderness, and tested God in the wasteland. And he gave them their request, but sent thinness into their living soul.The filled living soul tramples dripping honey, but to the hungry living soul every bitter thing is sweet.And the LORD said to Samuel, Hear and respond to the voice of the people in all that they say to you; for they have not spurned you, but they have spurned me, that I should not reign over them.THE THREAD
And the LORD said to Samuel, Hear and respond to the voice of the people in all that they say to you; for they have not spurned you, but they have spurned me, that I should not reign over them.The word translated “despised” here and “rejected” there comes from מאס (ma’as), to reject or refuse. Numbers names the LORD as already present in the people’s midst; Samuel’s verse makes the same root’s deeper target explicit: rejection of the LORD himself.
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