What Does Numbers 27:5 Mean?
And Moses brought their case before the LORD.
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 Moses brought their cause before the LORD.THE KEY
Moses does not merely forward the women’s claim; he brings it near to the LORD, placing their cause before divine judgment.
THE MEANING
An unresolved claim is not sealed at the human level; it can be brought before the LORD. The matter remains real and named, held where judgment and right can be given.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that an unresolved claim is already abandoned: the cause can still be carried into the LORD’s presence.
THE ROOT
וַיַּקְרֵב
vayyakrev
GROWS FROM
קרב
q-r-b
Draw near, approach; cause to come near.
This verb says Moses makes their case approach the LORD. The same root gives both what is near and the qorban, the drawing near; “brought before” also carries a sense of bringing close.
ALSO GROWS
qārōḇ: Near, close.
קָרוֹב
The case is brought into nearness to the LORD, not left at a distance.
qorbān: That which is brought near; a drawing near.
קָרְבָּן
The root makes the act of bringing their case before God a movement of approach.
מִשְׁפָּטָם
mishpāṭām
GROWS FROM
שפט
sh-p-ṭ
Judge, decide, render judgment.
“their cause” in this verse is mishpāṭām. Mishpat can name both a judgment and the matter or right being judged. Their “cause” is not only a complaint; it is a claim seeking a just decision.
ALSO GROWS
shōfēṭ: Judge, one who decides a case.
שֹׁפֵט
The women’s claim is carried to the one who can judge it.
shefāṭim: Judgments, decisions.
שְׁפָטִים
The word family connects their cause with the judgment it awaits.
מֹשֶׁה
Mosheh
GROWS FROM
משׁה
m-sh-h
Draw out, especially from water.
“Moses” in this verse is Mosheh. Mosheh is linked in Exodus 2:10 to mashah, “draw out of water.” The one named “drawn out” now brings the women’s case forward, an echo of the name’s meaning in his action.
ALSO GROWS
māshāh: Draw out.
מָשָׁה
This is the verb linked to Moses’s name and its sense of being drawn out.
meshithihu: I drew him out.
מְשִׁיתִהוּ
Exodus 2:10 uses this form in explaining the name Mosheh.
THE PATTERN
Unsettled claims can move beyond the limits of human handling into the reach of righteous judgment.
You shall not recognize faces in judgment; hear and respond to the small as well as the great; do not shrink from the face of man; for the judgment is God's; and the word that is too hard for you, draw it near to me, and I will hear and respond to it.I pour out my murmuring before him; I set forth my narrow place before him.Who, when he was insulted, hurled no insult back; when he suffered, he threatened not; but handed himself over to the one who judges by alignment.THE THREAD
You shall not recognize faces in judgment; hear and respond to the small as well as the great; do not shrink from the face of man; for the judgment is God's; and the word that is too hard for you, draw it near to me, and I will hear and respond to it.The same Hebrew word, מִשְׁפָּט (mishpat, judgment or case), names the women’s cause and the judgment it awaits. Numbers shows their claim brought before the LORD; Deuteronomy opens the connection further by declaring that judgment belongs to God and the hard case can still be heard.
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