What Does Numbers 14:1 Mean?
And all the assembly lifted up and gave their voice, and the people wept that night.
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
And all the congregation lifted up their voice, and cried; and the people wept that night.THE KEY
The crowd’s voice is not simply raised; it is given, so anguish becomes something the whole community puts into the night.
THE MEANING
When anguish fills a community, many voices gather into one sound, and grief keeps speaking through the night. This verse makes shared pain visible without pretending the night has already lifted.
THE ROOT
וַיִּתְּנוּ
wayyittenu
GROWS FROM
נתן
give, set, place
“lifted up and gave their voice” in this verse is wayyittenu. The phrase translated “cried” literally says they gave their voice, using נָתַן (natan, to give, set, or place). That adds an image of the whole people placing their voice into the night together.
ALSO GROWS
mattanah: gift
מַתָּנָה
A gift is something given; this noun shows the same root moving from the act of giving into what is placed in another’s hands.
netinim: given ones; assigned temple attendants
נְתִינִים
This form describes people as given or assigned, extending the root’s sense of placing something into a shared role.
וַתִּשָּׂא
wattissa
GROWS FROM
נשא
lift, carry, bear
“lifted up and gave their voice” in this verse is wattissa. The verb carries an upward image, while the same root forms מַשָּׂא (massa, a burden) and נָשִׂיא (nasi, a leader or prince, one elevated). The congregation’s voice rises, yet the shared grief still has weight.
ALSO GROWS
massa: burden, load; sometimes an utterance or oracle
מַשָּׂא
What is lifted can also be what is borne, giving the congregation’s rising voice an undertone of shared weight.
nasi: leader, prince; one elevated
נָשִׂיא
This word for a leader grows from the image of being lifted up, echoing the verse’s upward motion.
וַיִּבְכּוּ
wayyivku
GROWS FROM
בכה
weep
וַיִּבְכּוּ (wayyivku, they wept) and בְּכִי (bekhi, weeping) are action and noun from the same root. The root lets grief be named both as something people do and as the condition filling the night.
ALSO GROWS
bekhi: weeping
בְּכִי
The noun form makes the act into a named span or condition, as in the night of weeping in Psalm 30:5.
Bochim: weepers
בֹּכִים
This related form can name a place as well as people, showing how the root can mark a whole setting with weeping.
THE PATTERN
Scripture lets grief be shared and witnessed without requiring it to resolve on the same page.
Then David and the people who were with him lifted up their voice and wept, until there was no strength left in them to weep.So they sat down with him upon the ground seven days and seven nights, and none spoke a word to him, for they saw that his pain was very great.Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep.THE THREAD
For the burning of his anger lasts a moment, and in his favor is life. Weeping may lodge in the evening, but a ringing cry of joy comes in the morning.The word “weeping” is בְּכִי (bekhi, weeping), from the same root בכה (bakah, to weep) as the people who weep here. The psalm lets that same root carry the night toward morning, opening a horizon beyond this verse’s grief while honoring the night itself.
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