What Does Numbers 16:50 Mean?
And Aaron turned back to Moses, to the opening of the tent of meeting, and the striking was held back.
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 Aaron returned unto Moses unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation: and the plague was stayed.THE KEY
At the tent’s threshold, the striking force is restrained: the verse names the stopping of harm as an act.
THE MEANING
The strike meets a limit: Aaron returns to Moses at the entrance of the meeting tent, and the plague is restrained. The scene places someone at the boundary between death and life as the destruction stops.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that once destruction is moving, it cannot be interrupted; here the striking is restrained while danger is still present.
THE ROOT
נֶעֱצָרָה
neʿetsarah
GROWS FROM
עצר
to restrain, hold back, shut in, or stop
“striking was held back” in this verse is neʿetsarah. The word translated “stayed” comes from a root of restraint: the force is held back. A related form, “assembly,” carries the sense of a gathering or cessation, adding the image of a halt that holds a boundary.
ALSO GROWS
ʿāṣûr: restrained, shut up
עָצוּר
This related form makes the verse’s stopping concrete: a force is checked or held in.
ʿatseret: a solemn assembly
עֲצֶרֶת
This related noun names a gathered observance, echoing the root’s sense of holding or bringing something to a halt.
הַמַּגֵּפָה
hamaggefah
GROWS FROM
נגף
to strike or smite
“striking was held back” in this verse is hamaggefah. The word for plague belongs to the language of striking. Beside the root of restraint, it gives the verse a sharp movement: the blow is checked.
ALSO GROWS
nāgaph: to strike, smite
נָגַף
This is the verb behind the noun for plague, showing that the danger is pictured as an active blow.
maggefah: a plague or striking blow
מַגֵּפָה
This noun names the striking force that the verse says is brought to a stop.
THE PATTERN
Intercession occupies the threatened boundary, and the force moving toward destruction is held back.
And he stood between the dead and the living, and the striking was held back.And he said to cut them down, unless Moses, his chosen, had stood in the breach before him, to turn back his burning from ruining them.Therefore he is also able to deliver to the very end those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to plead for them.THE THREAD
For the LORD had held shut all the wombs of the house of Abimelech, because of Sarah, Abraham's wife.The same root appears twice in “fast closed up,” describing the wombs as held shut. Here it describes the plague being held back, so “stayed” carries the concrete sense of a force checked at its boundary.
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