What Does Numbers 5:6 Mean?
Speak to the children of Israel. When a man or a woman does any of the shortcomings of humankind, crossing over against the LORD, and that living soul is guilty;
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
Speak unto the children of Israel, When a man or woman shall commit any sin that men commit, to do a trespass against the LORD, and that person be guilty;THE KEY
The Hebrew names two layers in a single act: a human miss becomes a breach before the LORD, and the whole living person is accountable.
THE MEANING
A human wrong that becomes a breach against the LORD carries real accountability. The verse places that accountability on the whole living person who acts, rather than treating wrongdoing as a detached event.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a wrong can be only private or merely interpersonal: the verse names the act as a breach before the LORD and leaves the actor answerable for it.
THE ROOT
מְעֹל מַעַל
meʿol maʿal
GROWS FROM
מעל
maʿal
To act treacherously; to breach trust.
“crossing over” in this verse is meʿol maʿal. The Hebrew repeats the same root in לִמְעֹל מַעַל (limʿol maʿal, to commit a breach), holding the act and the breach together. What begins as a human wrong is named as a rupture before the LORD.
ALSO GROWS
maʿal: To act unfaithfully or deal treacherously.
מָעַל
This verbal branch names the act of breaking trust.
maʿal: Breach or treachery.
מַעַל
This noun names the rupture itself, showing that the deed carries a relational consequence.
חַטָּאת
chattaʾt
GROWS FROM
חטא
chata
To miss; to miss the mark.
“shortcomings” in this verse is chattaʾt. The root beneath “sin” keeps the sense of missing. The verse then names that missing as a breach: the language links the human failure to the relationship it ruptures.
ALSO GROWS
chata: To miss or commit a wrong.
חָטָא
The verb gives motion to the noun: a human action that misses.
chet: A missing or wrong.
חֵטְא
This related noun holds the same sense of missing that appears here before the verse names the breach.
THE PATTERN
A wrong between people also stands as an act held accountable before God.
There is none greater in this house than I, and he has held back nothing from me but you, because you are his wife. How then can I do this great evil, and miss the mark against God?The one who presses the emptied one taunts his Maker, but the one who gives him weight favors the poor.But when you miss the mark against the brothers and wound their weak shared sight within them, you miss the mark against the Anointed One.THE THREAD
But the children of Israel broke trust with the devoted thing, for Achan, son of Carmi, son of Zabdi, son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, took from the devoted thing, and the burning of the LORD's anger flared against the children of Israel.Both verses use מעל (maʿal, to act treacherously or breach trust). Numbers names the liable person as a living soul; Joshua shows how one person’s taking can touch the whole people.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
You can read any verse this way in the app, keep it as a card, and send it on.
A Bible app where you send verses from your keyboard and in Messages, and every verse has a Deep Dive.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us