What Does Numbers 20:21 Mean?
So Edom refused to give Israel passage through his border, and Israel turned away from 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
Thus Edom refused to give Israel passage through his border: wherefore Israel turned away from him.THE KEY
The verse moves from crossing to turning aside: a denied passage changes direction without ending movement.
THE MEANING
The border stays closed, and the movement bends away from it. A blocked way changes the route, but movement itself continues.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that a closed way leaves no movement possible; the verse ends with a turn away.
THE ROOT
עֲבֹר
ʿăvōr
GROWS FROM
עבר
ʿ-b-r
cross, pass over or through
“passage through” in this verse is ʿăvōr. The phrase translated as “passage” is built from the verb “to cross.” The request is for a crossing through the land, and the verse’s final movement turns aside when that crossing is refused.
ALSO GROWS
ʿāvar: to cross, pass over or through
עָבַר
This is the verb behind the requested passage: a route across a boundary.
maʿavār: a crossing or passage
מַעֲבָר
This noun makes the connection explicit: the crossing itself is what has been withheld.
נְתֹן
nĕtōn
GROWS FROM
נתן
n-t-n
give, set or place
Passage is expressed as something Edom can give: the wording places the crossing within an act of granting. Its refusal closes access at the border.
ALSO GROWS
nātan: to give, set or place
נָתַן
The root holds both giving and setting something in place, fitting the question of who grants access through a border.
mattānāh: a gift or present
מַתָּנָה
The gift noun grows from the same root, showing how giving is the seed shared by both ordinary gifts and the requested passage.
וַיֵּט
wayyēṭ
GROWS FROM
נטה
n-ṭ-h
stretch out, extend, incline or turn aside
“turned away” in this verse is wayyēṭ. The final verb comes from a root of extending and inclining, so the turn is a change in the line of movement. The refused crossing is followed by a route bending away from Edom.
ALSO GROWS
nāṭāh: to stretch out, incline or turn aside
נָטָה
This verb contains the verse’s final motion: Israel inclines away from the closed route.
maṭṭeh: staff, rod; tribe
מַטֶּה
The staff and tribe are branches of the same root, carrying the sense of something extended or a line that reaches outward.
THE PATTERN
A constricted route is not the whole horizon: movement can turn toward room.
And he pulled up from there, and dug another well, and over that they did not strive. And he called the name of it Rehoboth, the wide places, and he said, For now the LORD has widened a place for us, and we shall bear fruit in the land.He brings me out into a broad place; he pulls me loose, because he delights in me.And passing by Mysia, they came down to Troas.THE THREAD
Let us pass through your land, I pray you. We will not pass through the field or the vineyard, nor will we drink the waters of the wells. We will go on the king's road, and we will not turn to the right hand or to the left, until we have passed through your border.The same root, עָבַר (ʿāvar), meaning “to cross or pass through,” appears in this request and in the denied passage. The request describes a constrained crossing along the king’s highway, without entering the fields, vineyards, or wells.
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