What Does Numbers 15:38 Mean?
Speak to the children of Israel, and tell them to make for themselves tassels on the wings of their garments throughout their generations, and to set upon the tassel of the wings a cord of blue.
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
Speak unto the children of Israel, and bid them that they make them fringes in the borders of their garments throughout their generations, and that they put upon the fringe of the borders a ribband of blue:THE KEY
The word rendered “borders” is כַּנְפֵי (kanfei), “wings,” so the garment’s edge becomes a wing bearing a visible thread.
THE MEANING
The garment around your body has an outer edge the Hebrew names as a wing. A fringe and blue cord are set on that wing, so a visible sign travels with you at the boundary between what covers you and what is open. Ordinary clothing becomes a bearer of the sign.
THE ROOT
כַּנְפֵי
kanfei
GROWS FROM
כנף
Wing; the outer edge or extremity of something.
English “borders” sounds like a flat boundary, but כָּנָף (kanaph) also means “wing.” The word appears twice in the verse: the fringe is placed on the garment’s wings, at its outer edges.
ALSO GROWS
kanaph: Wing.
כָּנָף
The same Hebrew word translated “borders” here names a bird’s wing, giving the garment’s edge a living image.
kanfei ha’aretz: The four corners or extremities of the earth (Isaiah 11:12).
כַּנְפֵי הָאָרֶץ
The same word reaches from a garment’s outer edge to the farthest edges of the earth.
THE PATTERN
A truth meant to travel with a person is made visible on the body, as a sign on a garment, a mark on the hand, or a name on clothing.
And below, on its hem, you will make pomegranates of blue, purple, and scarlet, and gold bells between them, all around.And you shall bind them as a sign upon your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.And on his garment and on his thigh he has a name written, KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS.THE THREAD
And he said, Who are you? And she answered, I am Ruth, your handmaid. So spread your wing over your handmaid, for you are a redeemer.The same word כָּנָף (kanaph) rendered “borders” in Numbers is rendered “skirt” in Ruth. In Numbers, the garment’s wing bears a blue fringe; in Ruth, that same garment-wing is spread over someone.
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