What Does Numbers 21:29 Mean?
Woe to you, Moab! You have perished, people of Chemosh. He has given his sons who escaped, and his daughters, into captivity to Sihon king of the Amorites.
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
Woe to thee, Moab! thou art undone, O people of Chemosh: he hath given his sons that escaped, and his daughters, into captivity unto Sihon king of the Amorites.THE KEY
The verse distinguishes escape from freedom: the sons who survive one danger are still handed into captivity.
THE MEANING
This verse names the painful gap between surviving and being free: one danger can be escaped while another still holds you. It keeps the human cost visible, naming the sons who escaped and the daughters as people given into a king’s captivity.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
If I have escaped the immediate danger, I must already be free.
THE ROOT
אָבַדְתָּ
ʾābadta
GROWS FROM
אבד
ʾ-b-d
To perish, be lost, or lose the way.
“perished” in this verse is ʾābadta. Under “undone” sits a word that can mean to perish or be lost; the next clause makes that loss concrete. The verse names the survivors and daughters as people transferred into captivity.
ALSO GROWS
oved: Perishing, lost.
אֹבֵד
This branch shows that “undone” carries the sense of being lost, not only being defeated.
avadon: Destruction.
אֲבַדּוֹן
This branch gives the root’s language of loss its starkest form, fitting the verse’s unsoftened account of defeat.
פְּלֵיטִם
pelitim
GROWS FROM
פלט
p-l-ṭ
To escape or slip away; to remain as a survivor.
“that escaped” in this verse is pelitim. The word names the sons as escapees or survivors, but their escape does not end in freedom. The verse holds those two realities together: they get out of one danger and are then handed over to another.
ALSO GROWS
palit: A survivor or refugee.
פָּלִיט
This branch makes clear that the sons are the ones who got away, yet they are still vulnerable to capture.
peletah: Escape, remnant, or survivors.
פְּלֵיטָה
The branch names what remains after danger, while the verse shows that a remnant can still be taken captive.
שְׁבִי
shevi
GROWS FROM
שׁבה
sh-b-h
To take captive.
The noun for captivity grows from the verb “to take captive,” so it carries the force of being seized and held. The same word appears in Isaiah when the gods themselves are carried away captive.
ALSO GROWS
shavah: To take captive.
שָׁבָה
The verb makes captivity an action done to people, not an abstract condition.
shevuy: A captive.
שְׁבוּי
This branch names the person held; here, the sons and daughters are the people placed in that condition.
THE PATTERN
Escape from one threat is not the same as release from captivity; freedom comes when those held are brought out.
But thus says the LORD, Even the captives of the mighty will be taken away, and the plunder of the terrifying one will slip free. For I will contend with the one who contends with you, and I will deliver your children.A Song of degrees. When the LORD turned again the return of Zion, we were like dreamers.The breath of the LORD is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the emptied. He has sent me to heal the shattered in heart, to herald release to the captives, and the return of sight for the blind, to send the crushed away into release.THE THREAD
They kneel, they kneel together; they cannot slip the load free, and they themselves go into captivity.The same Hebrew word for “captivity,” שְׁבִי (shevi), appears in both verses: Numbers says Chemosh’s people are handed into it, and Isaiah says the gods themselves go into it. What appears to be power here becomes helpless cargo there.
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