Numbers 33:56

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

It shall happen that as I thought to do to them, so will I do to you.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Highlights

1 first appearance in the Hebrew Bible

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Word by word

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דִּמִּ֛יתִי

dâmâh

H1819

“to resemble”

Verb, Piel, Perfect, 1st Person, Common, Singular

Appears 29× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears here

Full BDB Definition

Origin: a primitive root

TWOT: 437

to be like, resemble - (Qal) to be like, resemble - (Piel) - to liken, compare - to imagine, think - (Hithpael) to make oneself like - (Niphal)

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 →

7: words
4: distinct lemmas
Pentateuch: section

First appearance in Scripture

This word makes its first canonical appearance in the Hebrew Bible here:

דִּמִּ֛יתִי to resemble H1819

Shared distinctive vocabulary

דִּמִּ֛יתִי to resemble H1819 occurs in 27 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:

Grammatical profile

4 verbs
2 prepositions
1 particle

Verb forms

וְהָיָ֗ה Qal · Sequential Perfect
דִּמִּ֛יתִי Piel · Perfect
לַעֲשׂ֥וֹת Qal · Infinitive Construct
אֶֽעֱשֶׂ֥ה Qal · Imperfect

Repetition

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

לַעֲשׂ֥וֹת to do H6213 ×2

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 17 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 7 Hebrew tokens and 8 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 33:56 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.

Deuteronomy 28:63 It shall happen that as Yahweh rejoiced over you to do you good, and to multiply you, so Yahweh will rejoice over you to cause you to perish, and to destroy you; and you shall be plucked from off the land where you go in to possess it.
Leviticus 18:28 that the land not vomit you out also, when you defile it, as it vomited out the nation that was before you.
Leviticus 20:23 You shall not walk in the customs of the nation, which I am casting out before you: for they did all these things, and therefore I abhorred them.
Deuteronomy 29:28 and Yahweh rooted them out of their land in anger, and in wrath, and in great indignation, and cast them into another land, as at this day.
Joshua 23:15–16 It shall happen, that as all the good things are come on you of which Yahweh your God spoke to you, so will Yahweh bring on you all the evil things, until he have destroyed you from off this good land which Yahweh your God has given you.
Ezekiel 33:24–29 Son of man, they who inhabit those waste places in the land of Israel speak, saying, Abraham was one, and he inherited the land: but we are many; the land is given us for inheritance.
Luke 21:23–24 Woe to those who are pregnant and to those who nurse infants in those days! For there will be great distress in the land, and wrath to this people.
2 Chronicles 36:17–20 Therefore he brought on them the king of the Chaldeans, who killed their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary, and had no compassion on young man or virgin, old man or gray-headed: he gave them all into his hand.

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 33:56 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

וְהָיָ֗ה כַּאֲשֶׁ֥ר דִּמִּ֛יתִי לַעֲשׂ֥וֹת לָהֶ֖ם אֶֽעֱשֶׂ֥ה לָכֶֽם

It shall happen that as I thought to do to them, so will I do to you.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX Numbers 33:56 Septuagint · lemma form

καί εἰμί καθότι διαγιγνώσκω ποιέω αὐτός ποιέω σύ

and it shall come to pass that as I had determined to do to them, so I will do to you.

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)

וִיהֵי כְּמָא דִי חֲשָׁבִית לְמֶעְבַּד לְהוֹן אַעֲבֵד לְכוֹן

(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)

וְהֵיכְמָא דַחֲשֵׁילִית לְמֶעֱבַד לְהוֹן אַעֲבֵיד לְכוֹן

and it shall be that as I had thought to do to them I will do to you.

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 33:56 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 →

Joseph Benson's Commentary

Num 33:56. I shall do unto you as I thought to do unto them — Make you their slaves; or rather, you shall flee before them, and be expelled the land, as they should have been.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(56) Moreover it shall come to pass . . . —Better, And it shall come to pass that, as I have thought (or, determined) to do unto them, so will I do unto you. It must be borne in mind that the idolatrous inhabitants of Canaan were never wholly exterminated, and the pernicious influence which they exercised was felt throughout the whole of the history of the Israelites until the judgments threatened against them were finally executed in the Assyrian and Babylonian captivities.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Whedon's Commentary on the Bible

Daniel D. Whedon

56. I shall do unto you, as… unto them — God is no respecter of persons, nor of nations. The sins of the people are followed by the same punishments as the sins of Gentile nations. The land vomited out Israel as it rejected the Canaanites when the former had copied the vices of the latter. Jos_6:21; Jos_13:13, notes.

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

The Pulpit Commentary

I shaft do unto you as I thought to do unto them, i.e., I shall execute by other hands upon you the sentence of dispossession which ye shall have refused to execute upon the Canaanites. The threat (although in fact fulfilled) does not necessarily involve any prophecy, since to settle down among the remnants of the heathen was a course of action which would obviously and for many reasons commend itself to the Israelites. Indolence and cowardice were consulted by such a policy as much as the natural feelings of pity towards vanquished and apparently harmless foes. The command to extirpate was certainly justified in this case (if it could be in any) by the unhappy consequences of its neglect. Israel being what he was, and so little severed in anything but religion from the ancient heathen, his only chance of future happiness lay in keeping himself from any contact with them. On the morality of the command itself, see on the passages referred to, and on the slaughter of the Midianites. As a fact, the extirpation of the conquered did not offend the moral sense of the Jews then any more than it did that of our heathen Saxon ancestors. Where both races could not dwell in security, it was a matter of course that the weaker was destroyed. Such a command was therefore justified at that time by the end to be attained, because it was not contrary to the moral law as then revealed, or to the moral sense as then educated. Being in itself a lawful proceeding, it was made a religious proceeding, and taken out of the category of selfish violence by being made a direct command of God.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — 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 7 words (4 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is dâmâh (“to resemble”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

What does “to resemble” (dâmâh) contribute to the verse as a whole?
This is the first place “to resemble” appears in Scripture (first appears here). What does its debut here establish?
How does Judges 20:5, which shares the word «to resemble», read alongside this verse?
What does the repetition of “to do” (2× in this one verse) do in this verse?
The translations on this page render this verse differently — a whole-verse word diff, not a word-by-word alignment. What might account for the different wordings?
«וְהָיָ֗ה» is a Qal Sequential Perfect verb. How does that grammatical form shape the action described?
Compare how Joseph Benson's Commentary and Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers read this verse. Where do they agree or differ?

Things to notice

1 word makes its first canonical appearance in Scripture here.
This verse counts 7 Hebrew ↔ 8 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 10 words in this verse.
“to do” occurs 2× in this single verse.
4 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 7 words in this verse.