What Does Numbers 21:17 Mean?

Then Israel sang this song, Come up, O well, sing back to it.

Numbers 21:17 · SDV

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.

This verse in the King James

King James wording

King James Version

Then Israel sang this song, Spring up, O well; sing ye unto it:

THE KEY

The well is summoned to rise, and the people’s song is phrased as an answer to it.

THE MEANING

The people call the well’s water upward and answer it in song. The verse holds the rising of a life source and the human voice around it in one moment.

THE ROOT

עֱנוּ לָהּ

ʿĕnû lāh

GROWS FROM

ענה

ʿ-n-h: answer, respond; in poetic use, sing or chant.

“sing back to it” in this verse is ʿĕnû lāh. The word translated “sing” comes from a root that can mean “answer” or “respond.” The song is more than sound: it is a voice answering the well as it is called to rise.

ALSO GROWS

ʿānâ: answered, responded

עָנָה

This is the same root used when Miriam “answered” before singing in Exodus 15:21.

maʿăneh: answer, response

מַעֲנֶה

This noun makes the root’s answering sense visible beneath the verse’s command to sing.

עֲלִי

ʿălî

GROWS FROM

עלה

ʿ-l-h: ascend, go up, rise.

“Come up” in this verse is ʿălî. The well is called upward: its water is pictured as rising from below. The English “spring up” carries this movement, while the Hebrew root also links rising with other forms of ascent.

ALSO GROWS

ʿōlâ: ascending offering, burnt offering

עֹלָה

Its name comes from the same root for going up, echoing the upward movement called for in the verse.

maʿălâ: ascent, going up

מַעֲלָה

This noun keeps the root’s sense of upward movement explicit.

THE PATTERN

Scripture pictures life-giving water as a source that rises from within or is met with a joyful human voice.

And Miriam sang back to them, Sing to the LORD, for he has risen high, risen high; horse and rider he has hurled into the sea.

Exodus 15:21 · SDVMiriam’s song begins with the same Hebrew root for answering that Numbers uses for “sing,” joining water and voiced response.

Then with leaping you will draw waters out of the springs of deliverance.

Isaiah 12:3 · SDVWater drawn from wells is joined to joy, as the well’s rising is met with song here.

But whoever drinks of the water I give never thirsts into the ages; the water I give becomes in him a spring of water leaping up into the life of the ages.

John 4:14 · SDVThe well’s upward flow becomes an inward source, carrying the image of water rising into the person.

THE THREAD

And Miriam sang back to them, Sing to the LORD, for he has risen high, risen high; horse and rider he has hurled into the sea.

Exodus 15:21 · SDV

Numbers’ “sing ye unto it” uses ⁨ענה⁩ (ʿ-n-h), the root for answering or responding. Exodus uses that same root when Miriam “answered” before singing, revealing song as a form of answer.

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