What Does Numbers 9:14 Mean?
And if a stranger shall sojourn among you, and will make the passover to the LORD; according to the statute of the passover, and according to its judgment, so shall he do; you shall have one statute, both for the stranger and for the one who springs up from the land.
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 if a stranger shall sojourn among you, and will keep the passover unto the LORD; according to the ordinance of the passover, and according to the manner thereof, so shall he do: ye shall have one ordinance, both for the stranger, and for him that was born in the land.THE KEY
The sojourner is given the same Passover pattern as the one born in the land: one ordinance holds both.
THE MEANING
A newcomer who lives among you and keeps Passover to the LORD meets the same ordinance and manner as someone born in the land. Birthplace does not create a second measure for this shared observance.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that birthplace alone determines whether someone may share the community’s Passover on equal terms.
THE ROOT
גֵּר
gēr
GROWS FROM
גור
g-w-r
To sojourn or dwell as a newcomer among a people.
“stranger / sojourn” in this verse is gēr. The verse places the noun for “stranger” beside the verb “sojourn”: a gēr is one who yāgūr among you. The shared root lets the newcomer’s place within the community meet the same Passover ordinance as the native’s.
ALSO GROWS
gēr: A sojourner or resident newcomer.
גֵּר
This is the person named as the stranger in the verse.
gūr: To sojourn or dwell among others.
גּוּר
This is the action that makes the stranger’s presence among the community explicit.
חֻקָּה
ḥuqqāh
GROWS FROM
חקק
ḥ-q-q
To cut or inscribe, and by extension to decree or establish.
“statute” in this verse is ḥuqqāh. The ordinance carries the sense of a prescribed form, something established with a definite shape. Here that shape is one shared pattern for both the newcomer and the one born in the land.
ALSO GROWS
ḥōq: A statute, prescribed portion, or due.
חֹק
This related form shows an ordinance as an established measure.
meḥōqēq: A lawgiver or one who decrees.
מְחֹקֵק
This branch connects the established rule to the act of setting it in place.
THE PATTERN
Shared approach to the LORD does not create a second measure for the newcomer and the native.
One instruction will be for the native of the land, and for the sojourner who sojourns among you.One judgment shall be yours, as for the sojourner, so for the native, for I am the LORD your God.For there is no drawing apart between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich toward all who call upon him.THE THREAD
One instruction will be for the native of the land, and for the sojourner who sojourns among you.In both passages, “stranger” and “sojourn” echo גור (g-w-r), meaning to sojourn or dwell among a people. Exodus states the shared measure directly: one law for the homeborn and the sojourner.
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