What Does Numbers 14:31 Mean?
But your little ones, which you said would be prey, I will bring in, and they shall know the land you have spurned.
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 your little ones, which ye said should be a prey, them will I bring in, and they shall know the land which ye have despised.THE KEY
The children named as prey are the ones brought in to know the land firsthand.
THE MEANING
Fear can label the vulnerable as doomed before their future is visible. The verse holds that label beside another possibility: being brought into the place once rejected, until it becomes known from within. What is feared for them does not exhaust what can become their lived ground.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
If someone is vulnerable, the danger I foresee is already their fixed future.
THE ROOT
יָדְעוּ
yade'u
GROWS FROM
ידע
To know, perceive, or recognize.
The English “know” can sound like information, but this verb also holds the knowing that comes through encounter. The children are brought into the land and come to know it from within.
ALSO GROWS
da'at: knowledge
דַּעַת
This noun from the same root shows knowing as something that can be held and understood; here it grows from entering the land.
hodi'a: to make known, inform
הוֹדִיעַ
This causative form connects knowing with what is brought into awareness; the verse pairs being brought in with coming to know.
מְאַסְתֶּם
me'astem
GROWS FROM
מאס
To reject, refuse, or cast aside.
“spurned” in this verse is me'astem. The parents’ rejection of the land becomes the backdrop for their children’s encounter with it. The land they refused becomes ground the children know firsthand.
ALSO GROWS
ma'as: to reject or refuse
מָאַס
The same root names the act of turning away from the land in this verse.
ma'us: rejected, despised
מָאוּס
This form shows rejection as a state of being cast aside, echoing how the land is regarded before the children enter it.
לָבַז
la-vaz
GROWS FROM
בזז
To plunder or seize as spoil.
“prey” in this verse is la-vaz. The adults picture the children as spoil to be taken. The verse holds that feared fate beside a different future: they are brought into the land and come to know it.
ALSO GROWS
baz: spoil, prey
בָּז
This noun names the fate the parents expect for their children.
bizzah: plunder, booty
בִּזָּה
This related noun makes the image of children treated as something seized explicit.
THE PATTERN
A fearful verdict about the vulnerable does not define the future they come to inhabit.
As for you, you planned evil against me, but God planned it for good, to make it as it is this day, to keep a great people alive.But the bowed ones will inherit the land, and they will soften themselves in the abundance of wholeness.And all your children are trained by the LORD, and abundant is the wholeness of your children.THE THREAD
And I will take you to me for a people, and I will be to you a God, and you shall perceive that I am the LORD your God, who brings you out from under the loads of the Egyptians.Both verses use ידע (yada), “know,” for recognition that comes through encounter. In Exodus, being brought out from under burdens leads to knowing; here, being brought into the land leads the children to know it.
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