What Does Numbers 14:41 Mean?
And Moses said, Why now do you cross over the mouth of the LORD? But it shall not break through.
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 Moses said, Wherefore now do ye transgress the commandment of the LORD? but it shall not prosper.THE KEY
The verse binds transgression to a failed crossing: going beyond the LORD’s spoken word is motion that cannot carry you forward.
THE MEANING
The verse names a present tension: a person can keep moving while going past what the LORD has spoken. Determination does not turn that movement into progress; the path cannot prosper through defiance.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
A determined second attempt can make a path prosper even when it crosses what the LORD has said.
THE ROOT
עֹבְרִים
ʿovrîm
GROWS FROM
ע־ב־ר
To pass over or cross.
“cross over” in this verse is ʿovrîm. עֹבְרִים (ʿovrîm, crossing over) comes from ע־ב־ר (pass over, cross). The phrase עֹבְרִים אֶת־פִּי יְהוָה (ʿovrîm et-pî YHWH, crossing the mouth of the LORD) pictures the act as passing over what God has spoken; the verse then says this crossing will not succeed.
ALSO GROWS
ʿēḇer: The other side; beyond.
עֵבֶר
The idea of crossing over opens into what lies on the far side, echoing the boundary being crossed here.
maʿăḇār: A crossing place, passage, or ford.
מַעֲבָר
This branch makes the root’s movement concrete: a crossing is a passage through, but here the crossing does not lead forward.
תִצְלָח
tiṣlaḥ
GROWS FROM
צ־ל־ח
To advance, succeed, or make headway.
“break through” in this verse is tiṣlaḥ. The Hebrew verb צָלַח (ṣālaḥ, advance or succeed) gives prosper the sense of forward movement. Beside עֹבְרִים (ʿovrîm, crossing over), the verse says that passing beyond the LORD’s spoken word does not become successful passage.
ALSO GROWS
hiṣlîaḥ: To cause to succeed or prosper.
הִצְלִיחַ
This form shows the root’s active sense of bringing an undertaking forward.
maṣlîaḥ: One who succeeds or prospers.
מַצְלִיחַ
The same root describes a person or effort that makes headway, sharpening the contrast with this crossing that does not.
THE PATTERN
Acting beyond the LORD’s spoken direction can be motion without a way forward.
And Samuel said, Does the LORD delight in rising offerings and slaughtered offerings as much as in hearing and responding to the voice of the LORD? Behold, hearing and responding is better than a slaughtered offering; to prick the ear is better than the fat of rams.There is a way straight before a man, but its latter end is the ways of death.But the one who hears and does not do is like a human who built a house on the ground without a foundation. The river burst against it, and at once it fell, and the breaking of that house was great.THE THREAD
Israel has missed the mark, and has also crossed over my covenant which I commanded them. For they have also taken from the devoted thing, and also stolen, and also lied, and also set it among their own vessels.The same Hebrew verb, עָבַר (ʿāḇar, to cross over), appears as transgressed here. Numbers pictures the crossing as going over the LORD’s mouth; Joshua applies that same crossing image to the covenant.
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