What Does Numbers 22:38 Mean?
And Balaam said to Balak, Look, I have come to you. Am I now able at all to speak anything? The word that God puts in my mouth, that I will speak.
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 Balaam said unto Balak, Lo, I am come unto thee: have I now any power at all to say any thing? the word that God putteth in my mouth, that shall I speak.THE KEY
The word Balaam speaks is already present before it becomes his voice.
THE MEANING
A voice can speak before another person without being the source of what it carries. The verse shows a word set in the mouth by God, then spoken by Balaam. The speaker gives it voice, while its origin remains beyond him.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that whoever speaks owns the origin and authority of the words.
THE ROOT
דָּבָר
dāḇār
GROWS FROM
דבר
d-b-r
To speak; the noun names a word and also a matter or thing.
Hebrew’s davar holds speaking and matter under one root: speech is not detached from what it says. Here, the word is placed in Balaam’s mouth, so his speech carries a matter whose source he does not claim as his own.
ALSO GROWS
dibbēr: Speak, say.
דִּבֵּר
The same root shifts from the word itself to the act of voicing it.
dāḇār: Matter, thing, affair.
דָּבָר
The spoken word can name the matter itself, joining what is said with what it concerns.
THE PATTERN
A speaker can carry words whose source lies beyond the speaker.
I raise up for them a prophet from among their brothers, like you, and I set my words in his mouth, and he speaks to them all that I command him.Then the LORD stretched out his hand and touched my mouth. And the LORD said to me, Look, I have set my words in your mouth.For I have not spoken from myself, but the Father who sent me has given me a command, what I should say and what I should speak.THE THREAD
I raise up for them a prophet from among their brothers, like you, and I set my words in his mouth, and he speaks to them all that I command him.Both verses place God’s word in a mouth and then use the דבר root for speaking it. Deuteronomy makes the connection especially clear: the word and the act of speaking share the same root.
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