What Does Numbers 5:23 Mean?
And the priest writes these curses on a scroll, and wipes them away with the bitter water.
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 priest shall write these curses in a book, and he shall blot them out with the bitter water:THE KEY
The curse does not merely vanish: its written form is wiped into water whose name keeps bitterness present.
THE MEANING
When a curse is made visible, the verse shows it being wiped into bitter water. The writing leaves the book, yet bitterness remains in the scene, and this line does not disclose what the water will do.
THE ROOT
וּמָחָה
ūmāḥāh
GROWS FROM
מחה
māḥāh
To wipe away or erase.
“wipes them away” in this verse is ūmāḥāh. The writing is not simply spoken and forgotten: it is wiped from the book into the water. This root can also describe wiping life from the earth, so its range holds both erasing a record and obliterating what is there.
ALSO GROWS
vayyimmaḥ: And he wiped out.
וַיִּמַח
In Genesis 7:23 the same root describes life being wiped from the earth, showing the force the verb can carry.
meḥēh: Blot out!
מְחֵה
In Deuteronomy 9:14 the same root is used for erasing a people’s name, linking wiping to removal from a record.
הַמָּרִים
hammarim
GROWS FROM
מרר
m-r-r
To be bitter; bitterness.
“bitter” in this verse is hammarim. The water is marked by the same word family that names bitterness in food and taste. The writing is erased into a medium whose bitterness remains explicit, so removal and bitterness occupy the verse together.
ALSO GROWS
mar: Bitter.
מָר
This singular form names the quality carried by the waters in the verse.
merorim: Bitter herbs.
מְרֹרִים
The same word family names the bitter herbs in Exodus 12:8, carrying bitterness from the water into something tasted and eaten.
THE PATTERN
An accusation written against a person is portrayed as something that can be wiped from the record.
To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet came unto him, after he had gone in to Bath-sheba. Show me favor, O God, according to your faithful love; according to the abundance of your compassion, wipe away my rebellion.Wiping away the handwriting of decrees against us, which stood opposite us, and lifting it out of the midst, nailing it to the cross.Turn around, then, and turn back, so that your shortcomings may be wiped away, and the times of breathing again may come from the face of the LORD.THE THREAD
To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet came unto him, after he had gone in to Bath-sheba. Show me favor, O God, according to your faithful love; according to the abundance of your compassion, wipe away my rebellion.Psalm 51:1 uses the same Hebrew root מחה (māḥāh), meaning to wipe away or erase, for transgressions. Here that root wipes curse-writing into bitter water; there it names the removal of what stands against the speaker.
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