What Does Numbers 15:31 Mean?
Because he has made light of the word of the LORD, and has broken his command, that living soul shall be utterly cut off; his crookedness shall be upon him.
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
Because he hath despised the word of the LORD, and hath broken his commandment, that soul shall utterly be cut off; his iniquity shall be upon him.THE KEY
The verse treats contempt as an act of nullifying the LORD’s command, with severance and crookedness falling on the one who does it.
THE MEANING
When you treat the LORD’s word with contempt and nullify its command, the verse says, your living soul is cut off. Your crookedness remains upon you.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The verse undoes the belief that rejecting the LORD’s command leaves no consequence attached to the one who rejects it.
THE ROOT
בָּזָה
bāzāh
GROWS FROM
בזה
b-z-h
To regard as contemptible or hold in low esteem.
“made light of” in this verse is bāzāh. The verse begins with a judgment of worth: the LORD’s word is treated as beneath regard. The next verb makes that contempt active by describing the command as nullified.
ALSO GROWS
nivzeh: Despised, treated as vile.
נִבְזֶה
This form names the status of something held in contempt, showing how the root moves from an act of despising to what is despised.
mevuzzeh: Despised, scorned.
מְבֻזֶּה
This participial form carries the despising forward as a condition imposed on its object.
הֵפֵר
hēpēr
GROWS FROM
הפר
h-p-r
To break, violate, or nullify.
“broken” in this verse is hēpēr. The command is not merely left undone; this root can describe rendering something void. The same verb is used for breaking a covenant, giving this breach the force of a rupture.
ALSO GROWS
hēpērû: They broke, violated, or nullified.
הֵפֵרוּ
Jeremiah uses this form for breaking the LORD’s covenant, connecting violation with the nullification of a bond.
hafarah: Annulment or nullification.
הֲפָרָה
This noun preserves the root’s sense of making something void, bringing out the force carried by “broken.”
הִכָּרֵת תִּכָּרֵת
hikkārēt tikkārēt
GROWS FROM
כרת
k-r-t
To cut or sever.
The repeated form intensifies the severance: the soul is certainly cut off. The root also names cutting a covenant, so the image carries the force of rupture and exclusion.
ALSO GROWS
kārat: To cut; also used in the phrase “cut a covenant.”
כָּרַת
The same verb that can name a covenant made through cutting names the severance pronounced here.
keritut: Severance; a certificate of divorce.
כְּרִיתוּת
This branch makes the root’s sense of a formal break explicit.
THE PATTERN
When the LORD’s instruction is held in contempt, disregard becomes a breach with consequences for the one who commits it.
The one who spurns the word is ruined; the one who fears the command is repaid.And you hate straightening, and throw my words behind you.Whoever has set aside Moses' instruction dies without compassion under two or three witnesses.THE THREAD
They have turned back to the crookednesses of their fathers, the first ones, who refused to hear and respond to my words. And they walked after other gods to serve them. The house of Israel and the house of Judah have broken the covenant I cut with their fathers.Jeremiah uses the same Hebrew root, הפר (h-p-r), for “have broken” the covenant. That shared verb opens the broken command here into the language of covenant rupture, while Numbers names the severance that follows.
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