What Does Numbers 4:18 Mean?
Do not cut off the tribe of the families of the Kohathites from among the Levites.
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
Cut ye not off the tribe of the families of the Kohathites from among the Levites:THE KEY
The Hebrew root for cutting a people off also describes cutting a covenant: the same image can sever belonging or bind it.
THE MEANING
A whole family-group can be severed from the people among whom it belongs. The warning speaks to anyone entrusted with a dangerous threshold: how that boundary is handled can determine whether others remain safely within the community.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that cutting off a few is a small or necessary price for protecting the whole; here, that severance is itself what must be prevented.
THE ROOT
אַל־תַּכְרִיתוּ
ʾal-takhrîtû
GROWS FROM
כרת
K-R-T
to cut or sever; in a causative form, to cut off
“cut off” in this verse is ʾal-takhrîtû. The root כרת holds both separation and binding: it appears in the command not to cut this family-group away, and in the Hebrew expression כָּרַת בְּרִית, “cut a covenant.” Here, the warning protects the Kohathites’ place within the Levites.
ALSO GROWS
karat berit: Make a covenant; literally, cut a binding agreement.
כָּרַת בְּרִית
The same root that can describe severing people can also describe forming a bond, bringing the verse’s concern with belonging into focus.
nikhrat: Be severed or removed from a people.
נִכְרַת
This form makes the consequence of the command concrete: a person or group can be separated from the community to which they belong.
THE PATTERN
Approaching what is holy requires guarded boundaries because careless approach can cost human life.
And you shall mark a border all around the people, saying, Guard yourselves, do not go up into the mount or touch its edge. Whoever touches the mount shall surely die.And the LORD said to Moses, Speak to Aaron your brother. He does not come at any time into the set-apart place within the curtain, before the covering upon the ark, so that he does not die. For I will be seen in the cloud upon the covering.For our God is a fire that devours.THE THREAD
On that day the LORD cut a covenant with Abram, saying, To your seed I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates.The Hebrew verb translated “cut off” shares its root with כָּרַת בְּרִית (karat berit), “cut a covenant.” The same image can mark either a bond or a severance; here, the command protects the Kohathite families from being cut away from their place among the Levites.
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