What Does Numbers 14:11 Mean?
And the LORD said to Moses, How long will this people spurn me? How long will they not lean their weight on me, for all the signs I have done in their midst?
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 the LORD said unto Moses, How long will this people provoke me? and how long will it be ere they believe me, for all the signs which I have shewed among them?THE KEY
The verse joins spurning with unbelief, showing that signs can fill the eyes while trust still refuses to lean on their giver.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks into the gap between what is plainly shown and what is trusted. It names refusal to rely on the LORD as more than uncertainty: it presses against relationship, because the same sentence calls it spurning. Signs can be present in your life without yet settling into trust.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie this verse dissolves is that enough evidence automatically produces trust. Signs may be present and still not be received as grounds for reliance.
THE ROOT
יַאֲמִינוּ
ya'aminu
GROWS FROM
אמן
To be firm or reliable; to support or establish.
“lean their weight on” in this verse is ya'aminu. The verb translated ‘believe’ grows from a root of firmness and reliability. Its connection to trust shows that belief here is not merely seeing the signs, but leaning on the one whose reliability they reveal.
ALSO GROWS
amen: Truly; firm, so be it.
אָמֵן
The same root gives assent the sense of standing firmly by what is said.
emunah: Trust; steadiness or firmness.
אֱמוּנָה
This branch makes visible the root’s movement from being firm to placing trust in what is firm.
יְנַאֲצוּנִי
yena'atsuni
GROWS FROM
נאץ
To spurn or treat with contempt.
The Hebrew verb is sharper than a flare of irritation: it means to spurn or treat with contempt. Beside refusal to trust, it makes unbelief relational, turning away from the one whose signs are already present.
ALSO GROWS
ne'atsah: Contempt or reproach.
נְאָצָה
The noun form makes explicit the contempt carried by the verb in this verse.
mena'ets: One who spurns or despises.
מְנָאֵץ
This form describes the one enacting the spurning, giving the verse’s question its personal force.
מֹשֶׁה
Moshe
GROWS FROM
משה
To draw out, especially from water.
The name Moses is tied in Exodus to being drawn out of water. Its appearance here carries that image beneath the question, though the verse leaves the connection unstated.
ALSO GROWS
mashah: To draw out.
מָשָׁה
This is the verb behind the name’s connection to being drawn from water.
Moshe: Moses; the one drawn out.
מֹשֶׁה
The name brings the act of being drawn out into the verse’s address.
THE PATTERN
Seeing signs and trusting the one they reveal are related but not identical movements.
And he leaned his weight on the LORD, and he counted it to him as alignment.For they did not lean their weight on God, and did not lean their full weight on his deliverance.Jesus said to him, Thomas, because you have perceived me, you have leaned your full weight. Flourishing are those who have not perceived, and yet have leaned their weight.THE THREAD
And he leaned his weight on the LORD, and he counted it to him as alignment.Genesis uses the same Hebrew root אמן (aman, firmness and trust) for Abraham’s believing. Here that root appears inside a painful question: signs can be witnessed without trust becoming steady.
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