What Does Numbers 5:11 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 verse makes speech relational before it is informational: the LORD addresses a hearer before the message is revealed.
THE MEANING
This line holds the instant before instruction unfolds: the LORD speaks to Moses, and speech arrives as an address. Moses’ name carries the image of one drawn out; here, he is the one to whom words are directed. As you read, you stand at that threshold too, where the message is not yet disclosed but is already reaching a hearer.
THE ROOT
וַיְדַבֵּר
wayedabber from davar
GROWS FROM
דבר
To speak or declare; the related noun means word, matter, or thing.
“spoke” in this verse is wayedabber from davar. The verse uses wayedabber, from d-b-r, and the related noun davar means both “word” and “matter.” The root links the act of speaking to what is spoken, so the coming instruction is more than sound: it is a matter taking shape in words.
ALSO GROWS
davar: Word, matter, or thing.
דָּבָר
The same root joins speech to the matter being spoken, giving the coming words substance.
dibber: He spoke or declared.
דִּבֵּר
This verb form names speech as an act directed outward; here, the LORD directs it to Moses.
מֹשֶׁה
Mosheh
GROWS FROM
משה
To draw out.
Moses’ name carries the sound and sense of mashah, “to draw out.” The one named through drawing out now stands as the hearer to whom words are directed, linking the name’s nature with the verse’s moment of address.
ALSO GROWS
mashah: To draw out.
מָשָׁה
This is the verb associated with Moses’ name, giving the name its image of being drawn out.
Mosheh: Moses; the one drawn out.
מֹשֶׁה
The name itself carries that drawing-out image into this verse, where Moses receives the words that follow.
THE PATTERN
Revelation reaches the world by addressing a hearer and placing words into a human mouth.
And when the LORD saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him from the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, Here I am.Then the LORD stretched out his hand and touched my mouth. And the LORD said to me, Look, I have set my words in your mouth.God, who in many portions and in many ways spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets.THE THREAD
Then the LORD stretched out his hand and touched my mouth. And the LORD said to me, Look, I have set my words in your mouth.Numbers uses wayedabber, from the root dabar, “to speak”; Jeremiah uses the related noun devarai, “my words,” from that same root. The shared seed links the moment speech reaches Moses with the words carried forward through a human mouth.
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