What Does Numbers 14:6 Mean?
And Joshua the son of Nun, and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, who were among those who had scouted out the land, tore their garments.
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 Joshua the son of Nun, and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, which were of them that searched the land, rent their clothes:THE KEY
Their torn clothes turn grief into a public witness when fear fractures what they have seen.
THE MEANING
Here you see distress shared, physical, and public: Joshua and Caleb tear their clothes as the community turns against the testimony of what they saw. Their torn garments make inward rupture visible when fear fractures a shared account of reality.
THE ROOT
וַיִּקְרְעוּ
wayyiqreʿu
GROWS FROM
קרע
q-r-ʿ
to tear, rend, split open
“tore” in this verse is wayyiqreʿu. The verb is from קרע (q-r-ʿ), whose basic image is tearing or splitting open; the garments become the visible surface of an inner rupture. The same seed names both the act of tearing and the rent left in cloth, so the verse holds grief as both motion and opening.
ALSO GROWS
qaraʿ: to tear, rend
קָרַע
This is the verb behind “rent”; it names an action that opens a seam, giving the grief a public shape.
qeraʿ: a rent, tear, or opening in fabric
קֶרַע
The noun names the opening left by the act, making the garment’s gap a concrete image of the rupture the two men bear.
יְהוֹשֻׁעַ
Yehoshua
GROWS FROM
ישע
y-sh-ʿ
to deliver, rescue, bring out from constraint
יְהוֹשֻׁעַ (Yehoshua) joins the divine name with ישע (yashaʿ), “deliver.” Joshua’s name places the nature of deliverance beside the grief his torn garment makes visible; the verse holds both together without making grief disappear.
ALSO GROWS
yashaʿ: to deliver, rescue, bring into safety or spaciousness
יָשַׁע
This root within Joshua’s name carries deliverance as a nature into the scene of rupture.
yeshuʿah: deliverance, rescue
יְשׁוּעָה
This noun makes explicit the deliverance carried in the name Joshua while the torn clothes show the present distress.
THE PATTERN
Torn garments turn inner rupture into a public sign of grief or protest.
And Jacob tore his clothes, and put sackcloth upon his loins, and mourned for his son many days.But when the sent ones, Barnabas and Paul, heard of it, they tore their garments and leapt into the crowd, crying out,THE THREAD
Then Job rose up, and tore his robe, and shaved his head, and fell to the ground, and bowed down.Job uses the same Hebrew verb, קרע (qaraʿ), meaning “tear” or “rend,” for his mantle. Numbers shows two witnesses tearing together, while Job shows one person tearing in bereavement; the shared root gives both scenes one physical language for rupture.
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