What Does Numbers 14:27 Mean?
How long shall I carry this evil assembly, which murmur against me? I have heard the murmurings of the children of Israel, which they murmur against me.
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
How long shall I bear with this evil congregation, which murmur against me? I have heard the murmurings of the children of Israel, which they murmur against me.THE KEY
The word translated “murmur” carries the sense of lodging: this is a complaint that stays, and the verse repeats its root as God says it is heard.
THE MEANING
When complaint repeats across a community, it becomes part of its shared speech rather than a passing reaction. The verse says that this lingering accusation is heard and names what it is directed against. What settles among the people is plainly before God.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A complaint does not become invisible or harmless just because a whole community repeats it; the verse says it is heard.
THE ROOT
מַלִּינִים
mallinim
GROWS FROM
לון
lûn
To lodge, remain overnight, or stay; in these forms, to murmur or complain.
“murmur” in this verse is mallinim. The verb and noun for murmuring in this verse both come from לון, a root with the sense of lodging or staying. English makes the complaint sound like a passing noise; the repeated Hebrew root gives it the sense of speech that keeps taking up space.
ALSO GROWS
lālûn: To lodge or stay overnight.
לָלוּן
This form makes the root’s sense of staying audible beneath “murmur”: the complaint lingers rather than passing in a moment.
melunah: A temporary lodging hut or shelter.
מְלוּנָה
This related word names a place of lodging; it echoes how repeated complaint can take up residence in a community’s speech.
THE PATTERN
Repeated complaint becomes a community’s shared speech and can crowd out its hearing.
And the people thirsted there for waters, and they murmured against Moses, and said, Why have you brought us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our cattle with thirst?They growled in their tents, and did not hear and respond to the voice of the LORD.Do all things without murmurings and back and forth arguments.THE THREAD
And Moses said, This shall be, when the LORD gives you flesh to eat in the evening, and bread until you are filled in the morning, for the LORD hears your murmurings which you murmur against him. And what are we? Your murmurings are not against us, but against the LORD.Exodus 16:8 uses the same root for both “murmurings” and “murmur,” then names the LORD as the one being addressed. Numbers 14:27 repeats that same root, making the complaint’s persistence and direction unmistakable.
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