What Does Numbers 33:55 Mean?
But if you will not drive out the settlers of the land from your face, then those you let remain of them shall be thorns in your eyes and goads in your sides, and they shall press you in the land where you settle.
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
But if ye will not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you; then it shall come to pass, that those which ye let remain of them shall be pricks in your eyes, and thorns in your sides, and shall vex you in the land wherein ye dwell.THE KEY
The Hebrew verb for driving the inhabitants out is also the verb for inheriting the land, so possession here is inseparable from dispossession.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks in the stark terms of territorial conflict: the inhabitants left in the land become pricks in the eyes, thorns at the sides, and a continuing hostile pressure. The verb rendered “vex” also carries the sense of binding or pressing upon, so the place of dwelling becomes a place of being hemmed in.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that the inhabitants left in the land remain a harmless remainder; the verse names their continued presence as a source of bodily pain and ongoing hostility.
THE ROOT
תּוֹרִישׁוּ
tôrîšû
GROWS FROM
י־ר־שׁ
y-r-sh
Take possession, inherit, or dispossess; the sense shifts with who possesses and who is displaced.
“drive out” in this verse is tôrîšû. The verb for removing the inhabitants belongs to the same root as inheriting or possessing the land. English separates expulsion from inheritance, while Hebrew holds both sides of the transfer in one word.
ALSO GROWS
morashah: Inheritance, possession
מוֹרָשָׁה
The land is described as an inheritance, but this branch keeps the question of how possession changes hands close to the word itself.
yerushah: Inheritance, possession
יְרֻשָּׁה
This noun from the same root makes the link between dispossession and taking possession visible.
וְצָרְרוּ
we-tsarerû
GROWS FROM
צ־ר־ר
ts-r-r
Bind or tie up; press upon or act with hostility.
“press” in this verse is we-tsarerû. “Vex” can sound like irritation, but the Hebrew verb carries the sense of binding or pressing upon. The thorns become more than discomfort: they describe an encircling pressure on life in the land.
ALSO GROWS
tseror: Bundle, something bound together
צְרוֹר
This branch makes the root’s binding sense concrete: what presses can also bind.
tsarah: Distress, trouble
צָרָה
The same root family links the pressure of “vexing” with a state of distress.
יֹשְׁבֵי
yoshvei
GROWS FROM
י־שׁ־ב
y-sh-b
Sit, dwell, settle.
“settle” in this verse is yoshvei. The same root names the land’s inhabitants and the people dwelling in it, setting one settled presence against another. English obscures the echo by rendering the same root as both “inhabitants” and “dwell.”
ALSO GROWS
yashav: To sit, dwell, settle
יָשַׁב
This verb gives the shared root behind both the inhabitants and the people who dwell in the land.
moshav: Dwelling, settlement
מוֹשָׁב
This branch keeps the focus on the settled place that the verse describes as becoming a site of pressure.
THE PATTERN
In Scripture, thorn language locates distress close to the body, where it keeps pressing on a person’s life.
Know for certain that the LORD your God will no more drive out any of these nations from before you; but they shall be snares and traps for you, and lashes in your sides, and thorns in your eyes, until you perish from off this good land which the LORD your God has given you.Therefore I also said, I will not drive them out from your faces. But they shall be thorns in your sides, and their gods shall be a snare to you.And lest I be lifted above measure by the excess of unveiling, a thorn was given to me in the flesh, a messenger of the Adversary to strike me with fists, lest I be lifted above measure.THE THREAD
From the narrow place I call out to the LORD, and the LORD answers me in a wide place.Numbers ends with וְצָרְרוּ (we-tsarerû, “they will press upon or vex you”), while Psalm 118:5 says מִן־הַמֵּצַר (min-hammēṣar, “from the narrow place”); their צ־ר consonant shape echoes constriction without making them the same root. The psalm then moves from narrowness into “a large place,” revealing the opposite direction from the pressure named here.
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