What Does Numbers 5:5 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 Hebrew root behind “spake” also names a “matter,” joining what is said to the reality it sets in motion.
THE MEANING
You meet the moment before the instruction: speech arrives, and what follows begins as a word received. In Hebrew, the root behind “spake” also gives *davar*, “word” and “matter,” joining what is spoken to the matter that will take shape. Moses’ name carries the image of one drawn out, placing the spoken instruction with one brought forth.
THE ROOT
וַיְדַבֵּר
wayedabber
GROWS FROM
ד־ב־ר
d-b-r
To speak; its related noun can mean a word, matter, or affair.
“spoke” in this verse is wayedabber. English separates speaking from the matter being spoken about. Hebrew keeps them in one root: the word is already bound to what it addresses and brings into view.
ALSO GROWS
davar: Word, matter, or affair
דָּבָר
The same root links the LORD’s speech here with the matter that the following instruction addresses.
dibber: Spoke
דִּבֵּר
This verb form shares the root with *davar*, showing speech and its subject as branches of the same seed.
מֹשֶׁה
Moshe
GROWS FROM
מ־שׁ־ה
m-sh-h
Draw out.
Moses’ name is linked in Exodus 2:10 to the Hebrew verb for drawing someone out of water. The word is directed to one whose name carries the nature of being drawn out.
ALSO GROWS
mashah: To draw out
מָשָׁה
This verb is the wordplay behind Moses’ name and gives the name its image of emergence.
Moshe: Moses; linked to “drawn out”
מֹשֶׁה
The name holds the image of one brought out, here standing where the spoken instruction is received.
THE PATTERN
A word from God gives shape to what follows.
And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.For he says, and it comes to be; he commands, and it stands.In the beginning was the word, and the word was turned toward God, and the word was God.THE THREAD
And he bent you low, and made you hunger, and fed you with manna, which you had never perceived, nor had your fathers, so that he might make you perceive that humankind does not live by bread alone, but by every word that goes out from the mouth of the LORD does humankind live.The “spake” here and the “word” in Deuteronomy grow from ד־ב־ר, a root joining speech with a word or matter. Deuteronomy carries that connection into life itself: the word proceeding from the LORD’s mouth is what a person lives by.
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