Numbers 13:15

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

Of the tribe of Gad, Geuel the son of Machi.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Highlights

2 hapax legomena — only here in the Hebrew Bible
2 first appearances in the Hebrew Bible

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גְּאוּאֵ֖ל

Gᵉʼûwʼêl

H1345

“Geuel”

Noun, Proper

Appears 1× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears here

Full BDB Definition

Origin: from H1342 and H410

TWOT: None

Geuel = "majesty of God" - the Gadite chosen to spy out the land, son of Machi

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 →

5: words
5: distinct lemmas
Pentateuch: section

Notable vocabulary

2 hapax legomena — words that appear only here in the entire Hebrew Bible:

גְּאוּאֵ֖ל Geuel H1345
מָכִֽי Machi H4352

First appearance in Scripture

These words make their first canonical appearance in the Hebrew Bible here:

גְּאוּאֵ֖ל Geuel H1345
מָכִֽי Machi H4352

Grammatical profile

5 nouns

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 10 words from the Hebrew and 10 from the Septuagint (LXX English) — the same length.

A rough comparison of the two English renderings, which tokenize alike — not a word-level alignment.

Word counts can differ between the Hebrew and the Greek without any difference in meaning — e.g. the Hebrew direct-object marker אֵת has no separate Greek word, and Greek often adds the article ὁ.

In the original languages it is 5 Hebrew tokens and 6 Greek tokens — but the two are counted differently (Hebrew bundles its prefixes and suffixes into one token; the Greek is in lemma form), so that isn’t a like-for-like length.

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 Numbers 13:15 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

לְמַטֵּ֣ה גָ֔ד גְּאוּאֵ֖ל בֶּן מָכִֽי

Of the tribe of Gad, Geuel the son of Machi.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX Numbers 13:15 Septuagint · lemma form

ὁ φυλή γαδ γουδιηλ υἱός μακχι

Of the tribe of Nephthali, Nabi the son of Sabi.

LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) · Public Domain

Hebrew: Westminster Leningrad Codex (CC BY 4.0). Greek: Septuagint (public domain); English from LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) (Public Domain). How the Septuagint differs from the Hebrew →

Targum (Aramaic paraphrase)

The Targum is the ancient Jewish Aramaic paraphrase of the Hebrew Scriptures — an interpretive translation, not the Hebrew text itself. Onkelos (literal) and Pseudo-Jonathan (expansive) render the Torah, and Jonathan the Prophets. Coverage is partial: where no permissively-licensed English translation exists for a verse, only the Aramaic is shown. This is verse-level text, not a word-by-word alignment to the Hebrew.

Targum Onkelos Torah (Genesis–Deuteronomy)

לְשִׁבְטָּא דְגָד גְאוּאֵל בַּר מָכִי

(no public-domain English translation for this verse)

Targum Onkelos — Aramaic: “Onkelos Genesis” (public domain); “Onkelos Exodus” (public domain); “Onkelos Leviticus” (public domain); “Onkelos Numbers” (public domain); “Onkelos Deuteronomy” (public domain). English: “Sefaria Community Translation” (CC0 1.0 (public-domain dedication)); “J.W. Etheridge. The Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan Ben Uzziel on the Pentateuch. London: Longmans, Green, 1862” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan Torah (Genesis–Deuteronomy)

לְשִׁבְטָא דְגָד עַזְגָד גְאוּאֵל בַּר מָכִי

and for Gad, Geuel bar Machi.

Targum Pseudo-Jonathan — Aramaic: “Targum Jonathan on Genesis” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Exodus” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Leviticus” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Numbers” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Deuteronomy” (public domain). English: “The Targum of Jonathan ben Uzziel, trans. J. W. Etheridge, London, 1862” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.

Commentary

Notes on Numbers 13:15 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 →

John Gill's Exposition

So they went up and searched the land,.... Went up the mountains as they were directed, and passed through the whole land; diligently inquired into everything material belonging to it, according to their instructions, and made their observations on it, and on the inhabitants, and their habitations:

from the wilderness of Zin unto Rehob, as men come to Hamath; this wilderness, from whence they went, seems to be the same with the wilderness of Paran, called Zin; perhaps from the multitude of thorns in it; but different from the wilderness of Sin, Exo 16:1, which was nearer Egypt; but this was on the south quarter of the land of Canaan, along by the coast of Edom, Num 34:3; Rehob, they are said to come to first from thence, was in the tribe of Asher in later times, Jos 19:28; and lay to the north or northwest of the land of Canaan. Jerom says (r), that in his times there was a village called Rooba, four miles from Scythopolis. Hamath was the northern boundary of the land of Israel, and was in the tribe of Naphtali, when it came into the hands of the Israelites, and lay to the northeast, as the former place to the northwest, Num 34:7; so that their direction, as they went, was south and north, and west and east: their journey is described by Jarchi thus; they went on the borders of it, length and breadth, in the form of the capital of the letter "gamma"; they went on the south border from the east corner to the west corner, as Moses commanded them: "get you up this way southward", Num 13:17; the way of the southeast border unto the sea, which is the western border; and from thence they returned, and went on all the western border by the sea shore, until they came to Hamath, which is by Mount Hor, at the northwest corner; but Hamath was on the northeast; nor did they go thither, it was too far off for them, but they went as far as Rehob, which was "as men go to Hamath", as it should be rendered, that is, it lay in the way to Hamath.

(r) De loc. Heb. fol. 94. A.

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

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.

Numbers, in the Pentateuch, opens this verse with 5 words (5 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is Gᵉʼûwʼêl (“Geuel”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

How does “Geuel” (Gᵉʼûwʼêl) shape what this verse is saying?
This verse holds 2 words here found nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible. What might the rare words draw attention to?
2 words here appear for the first time in Scripture. What is being introduced at this debut?
These translations render this verse differently; the difference is in the English rendering, not the original. What questions does that raise?

Things to notice

2 words in this verse appear nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible.
2 words make their first canonical appearance in Scripture here.
This verse counts 5 Hebrew ↔ 6 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 2 words in this verse.
5 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 5 words in this verse.