They came to Balaam, and said to him, Thus says Balak the son of Zippor, Please let nothing hinder you from coming to me:
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The same verse in 3 English versions, stacked beneath the original-language interlinear above. Click any original word for its lexicon entry.
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Highlighted words mark where these versions differ — a whole-verse word diff, not a word-by-word alignment.
They came to Balaam, and said to him, Thus says Balak the son of Zippor, Please let nothing hinder you from coming to me:
And they came to Balaam, and said to him, Thus saith Balak the son of Zippor, Let nothing, I pray thee, hinder thee from coming unto me:
And they came to Balaam and said to him, “Thus says Balak the son of Zippor, ‘Please, do not be held back from coming to me,
unfoldingWord Literal Text — © unfoldingWord, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Word-aligned USFM3 via Door43 (git.door43.org/unfoldingWord/en_ult).
Every available English version of this verse, each an independent rendering of the whole verse.
They came to Balaam, and said to him, Thus says Balak the son of Zippor, Please let nothing hinder you from coming to me:
They came to Balaam and said, “This is what Balak son of Zippor says: ‘Please let nothing hinder you from coming to me,
They came to Balaam and said, “This is what Balak son of Zippor says: ‘Please let nothing hinder you from coming to me,
And they came to Balaam, and said to him, Thus saith Balak the son of Zippor, Let nothing, I pray thee, hinder thee from coming unto me:
And they came to Balaam, and said to him, Thus saith Balak the son of Zippor, Let nothing, I pray thee, hinder thee from coming unto me:
And they came to Balaam, and said to him, Thus saith Balak the son of Zippor, Let nothing, I pray thee, hinder thee from coming unto me:
Who came to Balaam, and sayde to him, Thus saith Balak the sonne of Zippor, Bee not thou staied, I pray thee, from comming vnto me.
Who, when they were come to Balaam, said: Thus saith Balac the son of Sephor, Delay not to come to me:
and they come in unto Balaam, and say to him, `Thus said Balak son of Zippor, Be not, I pray thee, withheld from coming unto me,
and they come to Balaam and say to him, “Thus said Balak son of Zippor: Please do not be withheld from coming to me,
They came to Balaam and said to him, “Balak son of Zippor says this, 'Please let nothing stop you from coming to me,
And they came to Balaam and said to him, “Thus says Balak the son of Zippor, ‘Please, do not be held back from coming to me,
And they came to Balaam, and said to him, Thus says Balak the son of Zippor: Suffer not thyself, I pray thee, to be restrained from coming to me;
They came to Balaam, and said to him, “Balak the son of Zippor says, ‘Please let nothing hinder you from coming to me,
And they came to Balaam, and said to him, Thus saith Balak the son of Zippor, Let nothing, I pray thee, hinder thee from coming to me:
When they arrived they told Balaam, “This is what Balak son of Zippor says: ‘Please don't let anything stop you from coming to see me,
And they came to Balaam and said, Balak, son of Zippor, says, Let nothing keep you from coming to me:
And they came to Balaam, and said to him: 'Thus saith Balak the son of Zippor: Let nothing, I pray thee, hinder thee from coming unto me;
Literal Standard Version (2020), Covenant Press — licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API (eBible.org). Unlocked Literal Bible (unfoldingWord) — licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API (eBible.org). unfoldingWord Literal Text — © unfoldingWord, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Word-aligned USFM3 via Door43 (git.door43.org/unfoldingWord/en_ult). Free Bible Version, Dr. Jonathan Gallagher — licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API (eBible.org).
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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 →
Notable vocabulary
The rarest word here is צִפּ֔וֹר Zippor H6834 — appearing just 7 times in the whole Hebrew Bible.
Shared distinctive vocabulary
צִפּ֔וֹר Zippor H6834 occurs in 7 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:
Grammatical profile
Verb forms
Repetition
Words recur within this verse — often emphatic in Hebrew:
Hebrew & Septuagint length
In English translation the verse runs 24 words from the Hebrew and 26 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 15 Hebrew tokens and 20 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.
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.
וַיָּבֹ֖אוּ אֶל בִּלְעָ֑ם וַיֹּ֣אמְרוּ ל֗וֹ כֹּ֤ה אָמַר֙ בָּלָ֣ק בֶּן צִפּ֔וֹר אַל נָ֥א תִמָּנַ֖ע מֵהֲלֹ֥ךְ אֵלָֽי
They came to Balaam, and said to him, Thus says Balak the son of Zippor, Please let nothing hinder you from coming to me:
World English Bible · Public Domain
καί ἔρχομαι πρός βαλααμ καί λέγω αὐτός ὅδε λέγω βαλακ ὁ ὁ σεπφωρ ἀξιόω σύ μή ὀκνέω ἔρχομαι πρός ἐγώ
And they came to Balaam, and they say to him, Thus says Balac the son of Sepphor: I beseech you, delay not to come to me.
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 →
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.
וַאֲתוֹ לְוָת בִּלְעָם וַאֲמָרוּ לֵיהּ כִּדְנַן אֲמַר בָּלָק בַּר צִפּוֹר לָא כְעַן תִּתְמְנַע מִלְמֵיתֵי 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.
וְאָתוּ לְוַת בִּלְעָם וַאֲמָרוּ לֵיהּ כִּדְנַן אָמַר בָּלָק בַּר צִפּוֹר לָא כְּדוֹן תִּתְמְנַע מִלְמֵיתֵי לְוָתִי
and they came to Bileam, and said to him: Thus saith Balak bar Zippor, Let not anything hinder thee from coming to me;
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.
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 15 words (12 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.
Commentary
Notes on Numbers 22:16 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 →
Geneva Bible (1599)
Geneva Bible translators
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.
John Gill's Exposition
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.