What Does Numbers 32:39 Mean?
And the children of Machir son of Manasseh went to Gilead and seized it, and drove out the Amorite who was in it.
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 children of Machir the son of Manasseh went to Gilead, and took it, and dispossessed the Amorite which was in it.THE KEY
The Hebrew root behind “dispossessed” also means “inherit,” holding Gilead’s gain and the Amorite’s loss inside one transfer.
THE MEANING
You see land-taking with both sides visible: Machir’s descendants gain Gilead while the Amorite who lives there is driven out. The verse places capture and dispossession together, so possession here cannot be separated from the loss imposed on those already there.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that taking possession is only an act of gain: here, the same transfer includes the prior holder’s dispossession.
THE ROOT
וַיּוֹרֶשׁ
wayyōreš
GROWS FROM
ירשׁ
y-r-sh
Possess or inherit; in a causative form, dispossess or drive out.
“drove out” in this verse is wayyōreš. Hebrew binds taking an inheritance and making someone lose possession under one root. In this verse’s causative form, the transfer is explicit: the sons take Gilead by dispossessing the Amorite who lives there.
ALSO GROWS
yāraš: Possess, inherit, or dispossess, depending on the form and object.
יָרַשׁ
The root itself can describe either side of a change in possession.
mōrāšāh: Possession, inheritance.
מוֹרָשָׁה
This noun from the same root shows that inheritance and possession belong to the same word family.
וַיִּלְכְּדֻהָ
wayyilkeduhā
GROWS FROM
לכד
l-k-d
Catch, seize, or capture.
“seized” in this verse is wayyilkeduhā. The verse names capture before it names dispossession. English can make “took it” sound like a completed acquisition; this root keeps the act of seizing in view.
ALSO GROWS
lāḵaḏ: Capture, seize.
לָכַד
This is the verb used for taking Gilead.
nilkaḏ: Be caught or captured.
נִלְכַּד
The passive form makes visible the other side of capture: someone or something is taken.
THE PATTERN
Scripture can describe a transfer of possession while also making the displacement within it visible.
The Horim also settled in Seir in former days; but the children of Esau drove them out, and destroyed them from before them, and settled in their place; as Israel did to the land of his possession, which the LORD gave to them.And he gave them the lands of nations, and they took hold of the toil of the peoples.And when he had pulled down seven nations in the land of Canaan, he divided their land to them by lot.THE THREAD
And he gave them the lands of nations, and they took hold of the toil of the peoples.The Hebrew word translated “inherited” comes from ירשׁ (y-r-sh), the same root as “dispossessed” here. Psalm names the recipients’ side of the transfer; Numbers also names the people driven from the land.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us