What Does Numbers 20:11 Mean?
And Moses lifted up his hand, and with his staff he struck the rock twice, and the many waters came out, and the assembly drank, and their beasts also.
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 lifted up his hand, and with his rod he smote the rock twice: and the water came out abundantly, and the congregation drank, and their beasts also.THE KEY
The English adverb “abundantly” conceals that Hebrew pictures the rock yielding “many waters”, the abundance belongs to the waters themselves.
THE MEANING
You are shown force and provision in the same frame: Moses strikes the rock twice, and many waters emerge. The flow reaches the gathered people and their animals, making the reach of the provision explicit.
THE ROOT
רַבִּים
rabbim
GROWS FROM
רבב
r-b-b
To be many, increase, or multiply.
“abundantly” in this verse is rabbim. The Hebrew phrase is מַיִם רַבִּים (mayim rabbim), literally “many waters.” English turns that plurality into an adverb, while the Hebrew lets you see the waters themselves as many.
ALSO GROWS
rav: Much, many, or great.
רַב
This branch keeps the sense of number and multitude visible beneath “abundantly.”
revavah: A myriad or ten thousand.
רִבְבָה
The same root can express a vast multitude, showing how its idea of “many” can expand in scale.
וַיַּךְ
vayyakh
GROWS FROM
נכה
n-k-h
To strike, beat, or wound.
The verb for Moses’ blow belongs to the root נכה (nakah, to strike), also visible in words for a blow and for someone struck. That shared seed keeps the physical impact in view when the rock’s water emerges: the provision follows an actual blow.
ALSO GROWS
makkah: A blow, wound, or plague.
מַכָּה
The same root names the strike and the impact it leaves, keeping the force of Moses’ action present in the scene.
mukkeh: Struck or afflicted.
מֻכֶּה
This branch names the one who receives the impact, echoing the rock as the object struck.
THE PATTERN
Water from the rock becomes shared provision for a people.
Look, I will stand before you there on the rock in Horeb. You will strike the rock, and waters will come out of it, that the people may drink. And Moses did so before the eyes of the elders of Israel.He brought out trickles from the cliff, and made waters run down like rivers.And all drank the same breath-given drink, for they drank from the breath-given rock that followed them, and that rock was the Anointed One.THE THREAD
Look, I will stand before you there on the rock in Horeb. You will strike the rock, and waters will come out of it, that the people may drink. And Moses did so before the eyes of the elders of Israel.Exodus uses the same Hebrew strike root נכה (nakah, to strike), though it names the rock צוּר (tsur, rock) rather than סֶלַע (selaʿ, rock) in Numbers. The shared root links the scenes at the point of impact: in both, a blow precedes water for the people.
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