Yahweh met Balaam, and put a word in his mouth, and said, Return to Balak, and thus shall you speak.
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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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Yahweh met Balaam, and put a word in his mouth, and said, Return to Balak, and thus shall you speak.
And the LORD met Balaam, and put a word in his mouth, and said, Go again unto Balak, and say thus.
And Yahweh met Balaam and put a word in his mouth, and he said, “Return to Balak, and thus you shall speak.”
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.
Yahweh met Balaam, and put a word in his mouth, and said, Return to Balak, and thus shall you speak.
And the LORD met with Balaam and put a message in his mouth, saying, “Return to Balak and speak what I tell you.”
And the LORD met with Balaam and put a message in his mouth, saying, “Return to Balak and speak what I tell you.”
And the LORD met Balaam, and put a word in his mouth, and said, Go again unto Balak, and say thus.
And Jehovah met Balaam, and put a word in his mouth, and said, Return unto Balak, and thus shalt thou speak.
And the LORD met Balaam, and put a word in his mouth, and said, Return unto Balak, and thus shalt thou speak.
And the Lord mette Balaam, and put an answere in his mouth, and sayd, Goe againe vnto Balak, and say thus.
And when the Lord had met him, and had put the word in his mouth, he said: Return to Balac, and thus shalt thou say to him.
and Jehovah cometh unto Balaam, and setteth a word in his mouth, and saith, `Turn back unto Balak, and thus thou dost speak.'
and YHWH comes to Balaam, and sets a word in his mouth, and says, “Return to Balak, and thus you speak.”
So Yahweh met Balaam and put a message in his mouth. He said, “Return to Balak and give him my message.”
And Yahweh met Balaam and put a word in his mouth, and he said, “Return to Balak, and thus you shall speak.”
And Jehovah met Balaam, and put a word in his mouth, and said, Return to Balak, and thus shalt thou speak.
The LORD met Balaam, and put a word in his mouth, and said, “Return to Balak, and say this.”
And the LORD met Balaam, and put a word in his mouth, and said, Go again to Balak, and say thus.
The Lord met Balaam and gave him a message to share. He told him, “Go back to Balak and this is what you are to say to him.”
And the Lord came to Balaam, and put words in his mouth, and said, Go back to Balak, and this is what you are to say.
And the LORD met Balaam, and put a word in his mouth, and said: 'Return unto Balak, and thus shalt thou speak.'
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 →
Shared distinctive vocabulary
וַיִּקָּ֤ר to meet H7136 occurs in 27 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:
Grammatical profile
Verb forms
Repetition
A word recurs within this verse — often emphatic in Hebrew:
Hebrew & Septuagint length
In English translation the verse runs 20 words from the Hebrew and 21 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 21 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.
Topical passages linked to Numbers 23:16 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.
Cross-references courtesy of OpenBible.info (CC BY 4.0).
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.
וַיִּקָּ֤ר יְהוָה֙ אֶל בִּלְעָ֔ם וַיָּ֥שֶׂם דָּבָ֖ר בְּפִ֑יו וַיֹּ֛אמֶר שׁ֥וּב אֶל בָּלָ֖ק וְכֹ֥ה תְדַבֵּֽר
Yahweh met Balaam, and put a word in his mouth, and said, Return to Balak, and thus shall you speak.
World English Bible · Public Domain
καί συνἀντάω ὁ θεός ὁ βαλααμ καί ἐνβάλλω ῥῆμα εἰς ὁ στόμα αὐτός καί εἶπον ἀποστρέφω πρός βαλακ καί ὅδε λαλέω
And God met Balaam, and put a word into his mouth, and said, return to Balac, and thus shall you speak.
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.
וְעָרַע מֵימַר מִן קֳדָם יְיָ לְבִלְעָם וְשַׁוִי פִתְגָמָא בְּפוּמֵיהּ וַאֲמַר תּוּב לְוָת בָּלָק וּכְדֵין תְּמַלֵיל
(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.
וְאַרַע מֵימְרָא מִן קֳדָם יְיָ בְּבִלְעָם וְשַׁוֵי פִתְגָמָא בְּפוּמֵיהּ וַאֲמַר תּוּב לְוַת בָּלָק וְהֵיכְדֵין תְּמַלֵיל
And the Word from before the Lord met Bileam, and put a word in his mouth, and said, Return to Balak, and thus speak.
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 13 words (12 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is qârâh (“to meet”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.
Commentary
Notes on Numbers 23:16 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 →
Trapp's Complete Commentary
John Trapp
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.
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.
Whedon's Commentary on the Bible
Daniel D. Whedon
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
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)
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.
Ramban (Nachmanides)
Rabbi Moshe ben Nachman (Ramban / Nachmanides)
Ramban (Nachmanides) on the Tanakh — English translation: “Commentary on the Torah by Ramban (Nachmanides). Translated and annotated by Charles B. Chavel. New York, Shilo Pub. House, 1971-1976” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.