What Does Numbers 22:6 Mean?
Go now, I ask you, curse this people for me; for they are too mighty for me. Perhaps I will be able to strike them and drive them out of the land, for I know that the one you bless is blessed, and the one you curse is cursed.
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
Come now therefore, I pray thee, curse me this people; for they are too mighty for me: peradventure I shall prevail, that we may smite them, and that I may drive them out of the land: for I wot that he whom thou blessest is blessed, and he whom thou cursest is cursed.THE KEY
Balak’s request assumes spoken blessing and cursing can do what force alone cannot: change who prevails.
THE MEANING
Fear reaches for verbal power when physical power feels insufficient: Balak asks for this people to be cursed because they are too mighty for him. The verse shows his confidence that a curse can change the balance of force, just as a blessing can set another person in a blessed state.
THE ROOT
אָרָה
ʾārāh
GROWS FROM
ארר
ʾ-r-r
To curse, or place under a curse.
“curse this people” in this verse is ʾārāh. The same root frames the opening command to curse and the expected result, “whom thou cursest is cursed”: the Hebrew lets the act echo in its consequence. The verse sets this claimed force beside blessing, also repeated as an act and its result.
ALSO GROWS
ʾārūr: Cursed
אָרוּר
It names the state Balak expects the curse to produce.
məʾērāh: Curse
מְאֵרָה
This noun carries the same root into the curse itself as a stated condition.
תְּבָרֵךְ
tevarekh
GROWS FROM
ברך
b-r-k
To bless; the root is also connected with bending the knee.
“the one you bless is blessed” in this verse is tevarekh. “Whom thou blessest is blessed” repeats the blessing root for both the act and its result. Its connection to the knee gives blessing an embodied depth: it carries the image of bending, not merely applying a favorable label.
ALSO GROWS
berekh: Knee
בֶּרֶךְ
The shared root connects blessing with the posture of bending the knee.
berakhah: Blessing
בְּרָכָה
This noun names the blessing Balak believes Balaam can direct toward another.
THE PATTERN
Scripture treats blessing and cursing as consequential words that can be directed toward others.
And I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse, and in you all the families of the ground will be blessed.Death and life are in the hand of the tongue, and those who love it eat its fruit.Bless those who pursue you. Bless, and do not curse.THE THREAD
And I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse, and in you all the families of the ground will be blessed.Genesis 12:3 repeats the same Hebrew blessing root in the act toward Abram and in the blessing extending to all families, echoing Numbers’ “whom thou blessest is blessed.” The shared root makes blessing feel less like a label than an act that passes through one person to another.
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