Numbers 23:6

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

He returned to him, and, behold, he was standing by his burnt-offering, he, and all the princes of Moab.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Highlights

Septuagint runs longer here — compare

Download a study sheet

One document with this verse’s original text, its word-by-word gloss line, the meaning frame, cross-references with their text, attributed commentary, and full source and license credits — printable, and it pastes into notes with its structure intact.

This verse Autodidact and up

Study sheet (.html) Plain text (.txt)

A passage Seminary Student

Up to 50 verses in one chapter. A passage sheet keeps up to 6 commentary sources and 12 cross-references per verse, in the order this page ranks them, and says so on the sheet whenever that leaves anything out. Ask for a single verse and you get the Autodidact verse sheet above.

Everything on this page stays free to read, with no account — the sheet is a download of what is already on screen, not access to it.

Want to remove ads? Support Godless Engineer

Word by word

More ways to search: Search by grammar → Find every occurrence → Compare this word →

Practice this passage: Drill this verse → Learn its vocabulary →

נִצָּ֖ב

nâtsab

H5324

“standing”

Verb, Niphal, Participle Active, Masculine, Singular, Absolute

Appears 75× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears at Genesis 18:2

Full BDB Definition

Origin: a primitive root

TWOT: 1398

to stand, take one's stand, stand upright, be set (over), establish - (Niphal) - to station oneself, take one's stand - to stand, be stationed - to stand, take an upright position - to be stationed, be appointed - deputy, prefect, appointed, deputed (substantive) - to stand firm - (Hiphil) - to station, set - to set up, erect - to cause to stand erect - to fix, establish - (Hophal) to be fixed, be determined, be stationary

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

Grammatical profile

2 verbs
4 nouns
1 pronoun
2 prepositions
1 particle

Verb forms

וַיָּ֣שָׁב Qal · Sequential Imperfect
נִצָּ֖ב Niphal · Participle Active

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 19 words from the Hebrew and 30 from the Septuagint (LXX English) — the Septuagint runs noticeably longer here. See the side-by-side →

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 18 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.

Here the Septuagint runs noticeably longer than the Hebrew — LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) 30 words vs World English Bible 19. A rough length comparison of the two English translations, not a word-level alignment — read both below.

These are two independent witnesses, not word-aligned to each other, and the Septuagint is shown in lemma (dictionary) form.

Hebrew Numbers 23:6 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

וַיָּ֣שָׁב אֵלָ֔יו וְהִנֵּ֥ה נִצָּ֖ב עַל עֹלָת֑וֹ ה֖וּא וְכָל שָׂרֵ֥י מוֹאָֽב

He returned to him, and, behold, he was standing by his burnt-offering, he, and all the princes of Moab.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX Numbers 23:6 Septuagint · lemma form

καί ἀποστρέφω πρός αὐτός καί ὅδε ἐπιἵστημι ἐπί ὁ ὁλοκαύτωμα αὐτός καί πᾶς ὁ ἄρχων μωαβ μετά αὐτός

And he returned to him, and moreover he stood over his whole burnt offerings, and all the princes of Moab with him; and the Spirit of God came upon him.

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)

וְתַב לְוָתֵיהּ וְהָא מְעַתֵּד עַל עֲלָתֵיהּ הוּא וְכָל 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)

וְתַב לְוָתֵיהּ וְהָא מְעַתַּד עַל עֲלָתֵיהּ הוּא וְכָל רַבְרְבֵי מוֹאָב

And he returned to him, and, behold, he was standing by his burnt-offering, he and all the nobles 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 23:6 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 →

John Gill's Exposition

And he returned unto him,.... Immediately, as soon as he was told what to say:

and, lo, he stood by his burnt sacrifice; continued in his devotions, hoping for success, and waiting for Balaam's return:

he and all the princes of Moab; not only those that were sent to Balaam, but perhaps all the princes of the kingdom who were got together on this occasion, and by reason of the imminent danger they apprehended the nation was in on account of Israel.

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

6. All the princes of Moab — The king and the princes faithfully watched their smoking altars, anxiously awaiting the return of the man who was reputed to have influence with Jehovah sufficient to call down wasting and mildew upon the glistening tents of their enemies spread out in the plains below. They hoped that the angel of death would hover over their foes with pestilence and destruction on his wings when the curse should stream from the mouth of the mighty magician.

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

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 nâtsab (“to stand”). The Greek Septuagint runs longer here. A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

How does “to stand” (nâtsab) shape what this verse is saying?
The Septuagint runs longer here than the Hebrew. What might account for the difference?
These translations render this verse differently; the difference is in the English rendering, not the original. What questions does that raise?
«וַיָּ֣שָׁב» is a Qal Sequential Imperfect verb. How does that grammatical form shape the action described?
Compare how John Gill's Exposition and Whedon's Commentary on the Bible read this verse. Where do they agree or differ?

Things to notice

This verse counts 10 Hebrew ↔ 18 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 10 words in this verse.
10 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 10 words in this verse.