Numbers 22:21

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

Balaam rose up in the morning, and saddled his donkey, and went with the princes of Moab.

World English Bible · Public Domain

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וַֽיַּחֲבֹ֖שׁ

châbash

H2280

“and · to bind”

Conjunction + Verb, Qal, Sequential Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular

Appears 33× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears at Genesis 22:3

Full BDB Definition

Origin: a primitive root

TWOT: 599

to tie, bind, bind on, bind up, saddle, restrain, bandage, govern - (Qal) - to bind, bind on - to bind up - (Piel) to bind, restrain - (Pual) to be bound up

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 →

10: words
10: distinct lemmas
Pentateuch: section

Shared distinctive vocabulary

וַֽיַּחֲבֹ֖שׁ to bind H2280 occurs in 30 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:

Grammatical profile

3 verbs
5 nouns
1 preposition
1 particle

Verb forms

וַיָּ֤קָם Qal · Sequential Imperfect
וַֽיַּחֲבֹ֖שׁ Qal · Sequential Imperfect
וַיֵּ֖לֶךְ Qal · Sequential Imperfect

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 17 words from the Hebrew and 18 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 10 Hebrew tokens and 15 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 22:21 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.

Proverbs 1:15–16 My son, don't walk in the way with them. Keep your foot from their path,

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 22:21 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

וַיָּ֤קָם בִּלְעָם֙ בַּבֹּ֔קֶר וַֽיַּחֲבֹ֖שׁ אֶת אֲתֹנ֑וֹ וַיֵּ֖לֶךְ עִם שָׂרֵ֥י מוֹאָֽב

Balaam rose up in the morning, and saddled his donkey, and went with the princes of Moab.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX Numbers 22:21 Septuagint · lemma form

καί ἀναἵστημι βαλααμ ὁ πρωΐ ἐπισάττω ὁ ὄνος αὐτός καί πορεύομαι μετά ὁ ἄρχων μωαβ

And Balaam rose up in the morning, and saddled his ass, and went with the princes of Moab.

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)

וְקָם בִּלְעָם בְּצַפְרָא וְזָרֵיז יַת אֲתָנֵיהּ וַאֲזַל עִם רַבְרְבֵי מוֹאָב

(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)

וְקָם בִּלְעָם בְּצַפְרָא וְזָרִיז יַת אַתְנֵיהּ וַאֲזַל עִם רַבְרְבֵי מוֹאָב

And Bileam, arose in the morning, and saddled his ass, and went with the princes of Moab.

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 22:21 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 →

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown

Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown

THE JOURNEY. (Num. 22:21-41)

Balaam . . . saddled his ass--probably one of the white sprightly animals which persons of rank were accustomed to ride. The saddle, as usually in the East, would be nothing more than a pad or his outer cloak.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Trapp's Complete Commentary

John Trapp

Num 22:21 And Balaam rose up in the morning, and saddled his ass, and went with the princes of Moab.

Ver. 21. And saddled his ass.] Which never runs fast enough after preferment, till horse and man and all to the devil.

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

22:21-41 The passage is clearly making fun of this professional seer, whose spiritual insights and obedience to God are not equal to those of his donkey.

John Gill's Exposition

But the angel of the Lord stood in a path of the vineyard,..... Which were in the field into which the ass went, and before Balaam could turn her back she got into a narrow path, between the vineyards, as the Targum of Jonathan; a footpath which lay between them, or a footpath where foxes ran and had their holes, who used to lie near vineyards and among them, see Sol 1:14 however, it was a very narrow path, and here the angel placed himself, so that there was no passage for Balaam and his ass, at least not without great difficulty and danger:

a wall being on this side, and a wall on that side; and therefore there was no going out into the field, as before, to avoid the difficulty and danger; this being, as Jarchi observes, a stone wall that was on each side.

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

21. In the morning — In contrast with Abraham’s readiness to sacrifice all to God in Isaac (Gen_22:3) is Balaam’s greediness to clutch the wages of iniquity.

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

unfoldingWord translationNotes

Door43 World Missions Community

saddled his donkey

A saddle is a seat put on the back of an animal in order to ride it.

God's anger was kindled

The increase in God's anger is spoken of as if it was a fire starting to burn. This can be stated in active form. AT: "God became very angry" (See: Idiom and Active or Passive)

as someone hostile to Balaam

"as an enemy to Balaam" or "in order to stop Balaam"

with his drawn sword

A sword is drawn from its sheath in order to be ready to use. AT: "with his sword ready to attack" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)

The donkey turned off the road and went into a field

The donkey did this to avoid the angel of Yahweh.

to turn her back

Sometimes animals are referred to as "her" or "she." AT: "to turn it back"

translationWords

Balaam

donkey

Moab

God

anger

angel

Yahweh

servant

sword

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

Rashi

Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki (Rashi)

ויחבש את אתנו AND HE SADDLED HIS SHE-ASS — From here we may learn that the hatred one bears for a person makes one disregard the rule imposed upon him by his exalted position, for he, himself, not a servant, did the saddling. The Holy One, blessed be He, said: You wicked man! Their ancestor Abraham has already anticipated you in this, as it is said, (Genesis 22:3) “And Abraham rose up early in the morning and saddled his ass”) (Midrash Tanchuma, Balak 8; cf. Sanhedrin 105b).

עם שרי מואב [HE WENT] WITH THE PRINCES OF MOAB — his heart alike with their hearts (cf. Midrash Tanchuma, Balak 8).

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

Discussion questions

What does “to bind” (châbash) contribute to the verse as a whole?
How does Genesis 22:3, which shares the word «to bind», read alongside this verse?
These translations render this verse differently. What is at stake in choosing one wording over another?
«וַיָּ֤קָם» is a Qal Sequential Imperfect verb. How does that grammatical form shape the action described?
Compare how Jamieson, Fausset & Brown and Trapp's Complete Commentary read this verse. Where do they agree or differ?

Things to notice

This verse counts 10 Hebrew ↔ 15 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 4 words in this verse.
10 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 10 words in this verse.