What Does Numbers 13:31 Mean?
But the men who went up with him said, We are not able to go up against the people, for they are firmer than we.
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 the men that went up with him said, We be not able to go up against the people; for they are stronger than we.THE KEY
The Hebrew root behind “we are not able” also means “prevail,” holding capacity and prevailing in one verb family.
THE MEANING
The report sets two claims side by side: the people are stronger, and therefore the speakers cannot go up. That move from comparison to impossibility remains recognizable whenever opposition is treated as the final measure of what is possible.
THE ROOT
נוּכַל
nukhal
GROWS FROM
יכל
To be able or capable; to prevail.
The speakers negate יכל (yakol), turning their assessment of the opposing strength into a verdict on their own capacity. Elsewhere the same root describes prevailing, a connection English divides between “able” and “prevail.”
ALSO GROWS
yukhal: He can; he will be able.
יוּכַל
This form names capacity in the same verb family as נוּכַל (nukhal), the “we are able” negated in the verse.
vatukhal: And you prevailed.
וַתּוּכַל
Genesis 32:28 uses this form of the same root for prevailing, showing the other outcome that the root can name.
THE PATTERN
A visible imbalance of strength becomes a verdict on possibility when capacity is treated as settled before the encounter.
And Saul said to David, You cannot go against this Philistine to fight with him; for you are but a youth, and he is a man of war from his youth.For with God nothing will be impossible.Therefore I delight in weaknesses, in outrages, in bindings, in being pursued, and in narrow places, for the sake of the Anointed One. For when I am weak, then I am strong.THE THREAD
And he said, Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, the one who struggles with God, for you have struggled with God and with men, and you have prevailed.“We are not able” uses נוּכַל (nukhal), from יכל (yakol, to be able or prevail). In this verse, וַתּוּכַל (vatukhal), from the same root, is translated “hast prevailed.”
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us