Nehemiah 9:24

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

So the children went in and possessed the land, and you subdued before them the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, and gave them into their hands, with their kings, and the peoples of the land, that they might do with them as they would.

World English Bible · Public Domain

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וַתַּכְנַ֨ע

kânaʻ

H3665

“and · to humble”

Conjunction + Verb, Hiphil, Sequential Imperfect, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular

Appears 36× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears at Leviticus 26:41

Full BDB Definition

Origin: a primitive root

TWOT: 1001

to be humble, be humbled, be subdued, be brought down, be low, be under, be brought into subjection - (Niphal) - to humble oneself - to be humbled, be subdued - (Hiphil) - to humble - to subdue

About this verse

These counts appear in no published source. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged text and Lemma’s own curated glosses. What Lemma adds →

21: words
15: distinct lemmas
Historical: section

Shared distinctive vocabulary

וַתַּכְנַ֨ע to humble H3665 occurs in 32 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:

Grammatical profile

6 verbs
10 nouns
1 preposition
4 particles

Verb forms

וַיָּבֹ֤אוּ Qal · Sequential Imperfect
וַיִּֽירְשׁ֣וּ Qal · Sequential Imperfect
וַתַּכְנַ֨ע Hiphil · Sequential Imperfect
יֹשְׁבֵ֤י Qal · Participle Active
וַֽתִּתְּנֵ֖ם Qal · Sequential Imperfect
לַעֲשׂ֥וֹת Qal · Infinitive Construct

Repetition

A word recurs within this verse — often emphatic in Hebrew:

הָאָ֔רֶץ land H776 ×3

Cross-references

Topical passages linked to Nehemiah 9:24 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.

Joshua 21:43 So Yahweh gave to Israel all the land which he swore to give to their fathers; and they possessed it, and lived therein.
Joshua 11:23 So Joshua took the whole land, according to all that Yahweh spoke to Moses; and Joshua gave it for an inheritance to Israel according to their divisions by their tribes. The land had rest from war.
Joshua 18:1 The whole congregation of the children of Israel assembled themselves together at Shiloh, and set up the tent of meeting there: and the land was subdued before them.
Psalms 44:2–3 You drove out the nations with your hand, But you planted them. You afflicted the peoples, But you spread them abroad.
Numbers 14:31 But your little ones, that you said should be a prey, them will I bring in, and they shall know the land which you have rejected.
Joshua 21:45 There failed not anything of any good thing which Yahweh had spoken to the house of Israel; all came to pass.
1 Chronicles 22:18 Isn't Yahweh your God with you? Hasn't he given you rest on every side? for he has delivered the inhabitants of the land into my hand; and the land is subdued before Yahweh, and before his people.
2 Timothy 2:26 and they may recover themselves out of the devil's snare, having been taken captive by him to his will.

Cross-references courtesy of OpenBible.info (CC BY 4.0).

Hebrew and Greek witnesses Masoretic Hebrew ↔ Greek Septuagint

The same verse in the two great witnesses to the Old Testament, shown verse-for-verse.

These are two independent witnesses, not word-aligned to each other, and the Septuagint is shown in lemma (dictionary) form.

Hebrew Nehemiah 9:24 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

וַיָּבֹ֤אוּ הַבָּנִים֙ וַיִּֽירְשׁ֣וּ אֶת הָאָ֔רֶץ וַתַּכְנַ֨ע לִפְנֵיהֶ֜ם אֶת יֹשְׁבֵ֤י הָאָ֨רֶץ֙ הַכְּנַ֣עֲנִ֔ים וַֽתִּתְּנֵ֖ם בְּיָדָ֑ם וְאֶת מַלְכֵיהֶם֙ וְאֶת עַֽמְמֵ֣י הָאָ֔רֶץ לַעֲשׂ֥וֹת בָּהֶ֖ם כִּרְצוֹנָֽם

So the children went in and possessed the land, and you subdued before them the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, and gave them into their hands, with their kings, and the peoples of the land, that they might do with them as they would.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX Structure differs

The Septuagint has no separate book of Nehemiah. Its Greek text is the second half of Esdras B (2 Esdras), chapters 11–23; Ezra is the first half (1–10).

A verse-for-verse comparison isn’t shown here because the chapters and verses don’t line up. Switch to the LXX edition with the MT / LXX toggle above to read the Greek directly.

Hebrew: Westminster Leningrad Codex (CC BY 4.0). Greek: Septuagint (public domain); English from a public-domain English Septuagint. How the Septuagint differs from the Hebrew →

Commentary

Notes on Nehemiah 9:24 from classic Christian and Jewish commentators (each source and its license shown beneath its notes). The classic Christian expositions comment on the surrounding passage and are grouped to its opening verse, so a note may address several verses; the Jewish commentaries on the Tanakh (Rashi and others) are per-verse, so they appear only where the commentator wrote on this verse.

Lemma curates 59 commentaries, every one of them public domain or Creative Commons licensed, each selected and text-cleaned for this edition rather than reprinted as found. About our sources →

Trapp's Complete Commentary

John Trapp

Neh 9:24 So the children went in and possessed the land, and thou subduedst before them the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, and gavest them into their hands, with their kings, and the people of the land, that they might do with them as they would.

Ver. 24. So the children went in] After that they had been held a long while under the Egyptian servitude. God knows how to commend his favours to us, which cito data cito vilescunt, lightly come by, are lightly set by.

And thou subdduest before them … the Canaanites] There is an elegance in the original, Thou bowedst or pressedst down those crooked or depressed ones, the Canaanites, who had their very name (portending their condition) from bowing down, as born to be servants of servants, according to Noah’s curse, Gen 9:25 Rom 11:16.

And gavest them into their hands] If any were unsubdued, it was through their own sloth, for which they are reproved, and by which they afterwards smarted. It is the observation of a good divine, that as seven tribes are justly taxed by Joshua for their negligence and sloth in not seeking speedily to possess the land God had offered them, Jos 18:2, so may the most of us be justly rebuked for grievous security about the heavenly Canaan. Various of the better sort have but a title; and therefore it justly falleth out that these are buffeted by Christ, as those were disgraced by Joshua.

That they might do with them as they would] Save or slay whom they pleased; yet not forget the laws of humanity; as the bloody Spaniards have done among the miserable Indians; causing them to cry out, that it had been far better that the Indies had been given to the devils of hell than to them, and that if the Spaniards go to heaven when they die, themselves will never come there, though they might.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Tyndale Open Study Notes

Tyndale Open Resources

9:24 You subdued whole nations: See Josh 6–12.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne

24, 25. Possession and Prosperity

24. people] R.V. peoples. i.e. the heathen nations (cf. Neh_9:8).

with their kings] Compare the list of ‘the kings of the land whom Joshua and the children of Israel smote beyond Jordan westward’ (Jos_12:7-24).

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

John Gill's Exposition

So the children went in and possessed the land,.... Not the fathers of the Israelites that came out of Egypt, they died in the wilderness, all excepting two, but their children, which seems to be the reason of this manner of expression, see Num 14:30

and thou subduedst before them the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites; by means of Joshua, the general of the armies of Israel; there is an elegant paronomania in the word for "subdue", and the Canaanites, which cannot be expressed in our language:

and gavest them into their hands, with their kings, and the people of the land, that they might do with them as they would; no less than thirty one kings, see Jos 12:9.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary

Land. From which most of their fathers were excluded by death.

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

The Pulpit Commentary

The Canaanites. Sometimes, as in ver. 8, the Canaanites are spoken of as one of the nations cast out; sometimes the word is used in a larger sense, and includes the other six nations. Here we have the wide sense.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Rashi

Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki (Rashi)

and You vanquished [as translated,] and You vanquished.

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.

Lesson kit

Teaching starters — assembled from the data on this page, not authored interpretation. Every prompt links to the verse data it draws on. Edit before teaching.

Nehemiah, in the Historical, opens this verse with 21 words (15 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is kânaʻ (“to humble”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

What does “to humble” (kânaʻ) contribute to the verse as a whole?
Leviticus 26:41 shares the word «to humble» with this verse. How do the two illuminate each other?
“land” occurs 3× in this one verse. What is the effect of the repetition?
These translations render this verse differently; the difference is in the English rendering, not the original. What questions does that raise?
The verb «וַיָּבֹ֤אוּ» is Qal Sequential Imperfect. How does its form color the action?
Reading how Trapp's Complete Commentary and Tyndale Open Study Notes read this verse, where do the two commentators agree and where do they part?

Things to notice

These translations choose different wording for 14 words in this verse.
“land” occurs 3× in this single verse.
15 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 21 words in this verse.