What Does Numbers 31:25 Mean?
And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying,
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 the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,THE KEY
The Hebrew word behind “spake” can also mean “matter” or “thing,” so the speech opens something substantial, not sound alone.
THE MEANING
You stand at the threshold of a matter beginning to unfold through a spoken word. The verse brings you to the moment of address, where what follows first comes within reach through speech.
THE ROOT
וַיְדַבֵּר
vayedabber
GROWS FROM
דבר
d-b-r
To speak; its word-family also names a matter or thing.
“spake” in this verse is vayedabber. The Hebrew verb comes from the same root as דָּבָר (dābār), meaning “word,” “matter,” or “thing.” The verse holds speech and substance in one family: the words introduce the matter that follows.
ALSO GROWS
dābār: Word; matter; thing.
דָּבָר
This branch shows why the LORD’s speech here carries the substance of what is about to be said.
dibbur: Speech; utterance.
דִּבּוּר
This branch keeps attention on speech as an act that gives the coming matter a voice.
מֹשֶׁה
Moshe
GROWS FROM
משה
m-sh-h
To draw out; the name is linked to being drawn out of water.
Moses’ name carries the memory of being drawn out of water. Here, the one marked by that emergence is the one who receives the word, joining being drawn out with being addressed.
ALSO GROWS
māshāh: To draw out.
מָשָׁה
The name Moses is linked to this action, so the person addressed carries a name shaped by being drawn out.
meshîtihû: I drew him out of the water.
מְשִׁיתִהוּ
This form appears in the naming explanation in Exodus 2:10, tying Moses’ name to the act of being drawn out.
THE PATTERN
A spoken word carries the matter it opens, and what follows becomes active through it.
And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.By the word of the LORD the heavens are made, and all their host by the breath of his mouth.For the word of God is living and working, and sharper than any two-edged sword, reaching through even to the dividing of living soul and breath, of joints and marrow, and it separates the inward movements and thoughts of the heart.THE THREAD
Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying,Numbers uses וַיְדַבֵּר (vayedabber, “spoke”), from דבר (d-b-r); Jeremiah makes the same root visible as דָּבָר (dābār, “word”). The shared root lets speech appear as a matter arriving to the one addressed.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
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