Numbers 20:23

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

Yahweh spoke to Moses and Aaron in Mount Hor, by the border of the land of Edom, saying,

World English Bible · Public Domain

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בְּהֹ֣ר

Hôr

H2023

“in/at · Hor”

Preposition + Noun, Proper

Appears 12× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears at Numbers 20:22

Full BDB Definition

Origin: another form of H2022

TWOT: None

Hor = "mountain" - the mountain on which Aaron died; situated on the eastern side of the valley of Arabah, the highest of the whole range of sandstone mountains in Edom; on the eastern side is the ancient city of Petra - the mountain named as one of the marks of the northern boundary of the land which the children of Israel were about to conquer; located in Lebanon

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 →

13: words
11: distinct lemmas
Pentateuch: section

Notable vocabulary

The rarest word here is בְּהֹ֣ר Hor H2023 — appearing just 12 times in the whole Hebrew Bible.

Shared distinctive vocabulary

בְּהֹ֣ר Hor H2023 occurs in 12 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:

Grammatical profile

2 verbs
8 nouns
3 prepositions

Verb forms

וַיֹּ֧אמֶר Qal · Sequential Imperfect
לֵאמֹֽר Qal · Infinitive Construct

Repetition

Words recur within this verse — often emphatic in Hebrew:

וַיֹּ֧אמֶר to say H559 ×2
אֶל to H413 ×2

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 18 words from the Hebrew and 20 from the Septuagint (LXX English) — closely comparable.

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 13 Hebrew tokens and 17 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.

Cross-references

Topical passages linked to Numbers 20:23 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.

Numbers 33:37 They traveled from Kadesh, and encamped in Mount Hor, in the edge of the land of Edom.

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 Numbers 20:23 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

וַיֹּ֧אמֶר יְהוָ֛ה אֶל מֹשֶׁ֥ה וְאֶֽל אַהֲרֹ֖ן בְּהֹ֣ר הָהָ֑ר עַל גְּב֥וּל אֶֽרֶץ אֱד֖וֹם לֵאמֹֽר

Yahweh spoke to Moses and Aaron in Mount Hor, by the border of the land of Edom, saying,

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX Numbers 20:23 Septuagint · lemma form

καί εἶπον κύριος πρός μωυσῆς καί ἀαρών ἐν ωρ ὁ ὄρος ἐπί ὁ ὅριον γῆ εδωμ λέγω

And the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron in mount Or, on the borders of the land of Edom, saying,

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)

וַאֲמַר יְיָ לְמשֶׁה וּלְאַהֲרֹן בְּהוֹר טוּרָא עַל תְּחוּם אַרְעָא דֶאֱדוֹם לְמֵימָר

(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)

וַאֲמַר יְיָ לְמשֶׁה בְּטַוְורוֹס אוּמָנוֹס עַל תְּחוּם אַרְעָא דֶאֱדוֹם לְמֵימָר

And the Lord spake unto Mosheh in the Mount Umanom, on the coast of the land of Edom, saying:

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 20:23 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 →

Joseph Benson's Commentary

Num 20:23. And the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron — So these two dear brothers must part! Aaron must die first; but Moses is not likely to be long after him. So that it is only for a while, a little while, that they are separated.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

John Gill's Exposition

Aaron shall be gathered unto his people,.... That is, shall die, for this phrase is a periphrasis of death, and is used in common both of good and bad men, and designs death in general, without regard to persons and places men go to at death:

for he shall not enter into the land which I have given unto the children of Israel; the land of Canaan; and Aaron the priest, and so Moses the lawgiver, not being suffered to enter into that land, show the weakness and imperfection of the law, and of the Levitical priesthood, and the insufficiency of them, and of obedience to them to bring men to, and give them an entrance into the heavenly glory; that is done by another person, the antitype of Joshua, even Jesus:

because ye rebelled against my word at the water of Meribah; that is, you Moses and Aaron; their unbelief is called a rebelling against the word of the Lord, for which it was threatened them, that they should not bring the people of Israel into the land of Canaan, and now the threatening begins to take place, see Num 20:12.

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

Whedon's Commentary on the Bible

Daniel D. Whedon

23. By the coast — On the border of Edom. This would argue that Kadesh, which was in “the uttermost of thy border,” was near Mount Hor. See Num_20:16, note.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The Pulpit Commentary

By the coast of the land of Edom. Mount Her was on the eastern side of the Arabah, which at this point certainly formed the frontier of Edom; but it was no doubt untenanted, owing to its bare and precipitous character, and therefore was not reckoned as the property of Edom. We may suppose that at this time the encampment stretched along the Arabah in front of the mountain. (see on Num_33:30 Deu_10:6)

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

John Wesley's Explanatory Notes

And the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron - So these two dear brothers must part! Aaron must die first: but Moses is not likely to be long after him. So that it is only for a while, a little while, that they are separated.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

Rashi

Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki (Rashi)

על גבול ארץ אדום BY THE BOUNDARY OF THE LAND OF EDOM — This (the statement that Aaron died here) tells us that because they here wished to join themselves in close friendship with the wicked, a breach was made in their works and they had to lose this righteous man, Aaron. Similarly does the prophet say, (II Chronicles 20:37) “Because thou hast joined thyself with Ahaziah, the Lord hath made a breach in thy works” (Midrash Tanchuma, Chukat 14).

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.

Numbers, in the Pentateuch, opens this verse with 13 words (11 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is Hôr (“Hor”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

What does “Hor” (Hôr) contribute to the verse as a whole?
How does Numbers 20:22, which shares the word «Hor», read alongside this verse?
What does the repetition of “to say” (2× in this one verse) do in this verse?
These translations render this verse differently. What is at stake in choosing one wording over another?
«וַיֹּ֧אמֶר» is a Qal Sequential Imperfect verb. How does that grammatical form shape the action described?
Compare how Joseph Benson's Commentary and John Gill's Exposition read this verse. Where do they agree or differ?

Things to notice

This verse counts 13 Hebrew ↔ 17 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 7 words in this verse.
“to say” occurs 2× in this single verse.
11 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 13 words in this verse.