Numbers 22:10

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

Balaam said to God, Balak the son of Zippor, king of Moab, has sent to me, [saying],

World English Bible · Public Domain

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צִפֹּ֛ר

Tsippôwr

H6834

“Zippor”

Noun, Proper

Appears 7× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears at Numbers 22:2

Full BDB Definition

Origin: the same as H6833

TWOT: None

Zippor = "sparrow" - father of Balak the king of Moab at the time of the exodus

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 →

11: words
10: distinct lemmas
Pentateuch: section

Notable vocabulary

The rarest word here is צִפֹּ֛ר Zippor H6834 — appearing just 7 times in the whole Hebrew Bible.

Shared distinctive vocabulary

צִפֹּ֛ר Zippor H6834 occurs in 7 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:

Grammatical profile

2 verbs
7 nouns
2 prepositions

Verb forms

וַיֹּ֥אמֶר Qal · Sequential Imperfect
שָׁלַ֥ח Qal · Perfect

Repetition

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

אֶל to H413 ×2

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 17 words from the Hebrew and 17 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 11 Hebrew tokens and 16 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 22:10 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

וַיֹּ֥אמֶר בִּלְעָ֖ם אֶל הָאֱלֹהִ֑ים בָּלָ֧ק בֶּן צִפֹּ֛ר מֶ֥לֶךְ מוֹאָ֖ב שָׁלַ֥ח אֵלָֽי

Balaam said to God, Balak the son of Zippor, king of Moab, has sent to me, [saying],

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX Numbers 22:10 Septuagint · lemma form

καί εἶπον βαλααμ πρός ὁ θεός βαλακ υἱός σεπφωρ βασιλεύς μωαβ ἀποστέλλω αὐτός πρός ἐγώ λέγω

And Balaam said to God, Balac son of Sepphor, king of Moab, sent them to me, 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 בִּלְעָם קֳדָם יְיָ בָּלָק בַּר צִפּוֹר מַלְכָּא דְמוֹאָב שְׁלַח לְוָתִי

(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 בִּלְעָם קֳדָם יְיָ בָּלָק בַּר צִפּוֹר מֶלֶךְ מוֹאָב שָׁדַר פּוּלִין לְוָתִי

And Bileam said before the Lord, Balak bar Zippor, king of the Moabaee, hath sent messengers to me, 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 22:10 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 →

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne

10. hath sent unto me, saying] The word ‘saying’ is absent from the Heb. The abruptness with which the words of Balak’s message are given is perhaps due to the fusion of J and E .

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

Behold, there is a people come out of Egypt,.... In this, and the following part of the verse, he faithfully and punctually relates the words of Balak to him by his messengers, as well knowing he could not deceive the omniscient God, or hide anything from him, though he could deceive men; and conceal the truth from them, to serve a purpose; See Gill on Num 22:5, Num 22:6.

.

Numbers 22:12

num 22:12

num 22:12

num 22:12And God said unto Balaam, thou shalt not go with them,.... Which is a denial of the first thing Balak requested, "come now, therefore", &c. Num 22:6.

thou shall not curse the people; which was the principal thing desired, and in order to which he was solicited to go with the messengers; but this is absolutely forbidden:

for they are blessed; by the Lord himself, with an irrevocable blessing, and therefore it would be vain and fruitless, as well as dangerous for him to attempt to curse them, Gen 12:3 this may have a special respect to the blessing of Jacob by Isaac, which could not be reversed by the solicitations of Esau, and which descended to Jacob's posterity, the Israelites, Gen 27:33.

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

Rashi

Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki (Rashi)

בלק בן צפור וגו׳ BALAK THE SON OF ZIPPOR [KING OF MOAB, HAS SENT TO ME] — Although I am of no importance in Your eyes, I am of importance in the eyes of kings (Midrash Tanchuma, Balak 5).

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 11 words (10 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is Tsippôwr (“Zippor”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

How does “Zippor” (Tsippôwr) shape what this verse is saying?
How does Numbers 22:2, which shares the word «Zippor», read alongside this verse?
What does the repetition of “to” (2× in this one verse) do in this verse?
These translations render this verse differently; the difference is in the English rendering, not the original. What questions does that raise?
«וַיֹּ֥אמֶר» is a Qal Sequential Imperfect verb. How does that grammatical form shape the action described?
Compare how The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges and John Gill's Exposition read this verse. Where do they agree or differ?

Things to notice

This verse counts 11 Hebrew ↔ 16 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 2 words in this verse.
“to” occurs 2× in this single verse.
10 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 11 words in this verse.