What Does Numbers 5:31 Mean?
Then the man is clear of crookedness, and this woman carries her crookedness.
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
Then shall the man be guiltless from iniquity, and this woman shall bear her iniquity.THE KEY
The verse places two outcomes side by side: the man is cleared, while the woman is named as the bearer of iniquity.
THE MEANING
The verse puts two outcomes before you: the man is guiltless from iniquity, and the woman bears hers. The sentence assigns release to him and burden to her, leaving that difference unsoftened.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the assumption that this judgment treats the two people alike: its words clear the man and burden the woman.
THE ROOT
תִּשָּׂא
tissāʾ
GROWS FROM
נשא
Lift, carry, bear.
“carries” in this verse is tissāʾ. Here the woman is the grammatical carrier of iniquity. The same root appears in a word for one elevated to rank, so its family holds both carrying a burden and being raised up, connections English leaves hidden.
ALSO GROWS
nāśîʾ: Prince, leader; one elevated.
נָשִׂיא
This noun is connected with the idea of being raised up, showing that נשא can describe both carrying weight and elevation.
nissāʾ: Lifted, borne, carried.
נִשָּׂא
This form makes the state of being carried explicit, illuminating the woman’s assigned role as bearer.
וְנִקָּה
weniqqāh
GROWS FROM
נקה
Be clean, be clear, be free from liability.
“is clear” in this verse is weniqqāh. The man’s “guiltless” is expressed with a verb of being clean or clear, carrying an image of release from liability. Against that clearing, the woman’s bearing remains; the verse marks two different outcomes with two different verbs.
ALSO GROWS
niqqāh: Be clear, be free of guilt.
נִקָּה
This form names the man’s cleared status in the verse, adding the sense of being free beneath the English “guiltless.”
yenakkeh: He will clear or acquit.
יְנַקֶּה
Exodus 34:7 uses this form in “will by no means clear the guilty,” showing the root’s connection to release from liability.
THE PATTERN
Scripture makes responsibility visible by naming who bears guilt and when that burden is or is not transferred.
Guarding faithful love for thousands, carrying crookedness, rebellion, and falling short, and who by no means leaves the guilty clean, visiting the crookedness of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, to the third and to the fourth generation.The living soul that is missing shall die. The son shall not bear the crookedness of the father, nor shall the father bear the crookedness of the son; the alignment of the aligned shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him.Who himself carried our shortcomings in his own body on the tree, that we, dead to shortcomings, might live to alignment; and by his bruises you were healed.THE THREAD
Guarding faithful love for thousands, carrying crookedness, rebellion, and falling short, and who by no means leaves the guilty clean, visiting the crookedness of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, to the third and to the fourth generation.Exodus 34:7 uses the same Hebrew root נקה (naqah, be clear or free from liability) in its statement that the guilty will not be cleared. Beside that line, Numbers 5:31 sets a man’s clearing against the woman’s bearing of iniquity.
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