Numbers 34:12

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

and the border shall go down to the Jordan, and the goings out of it shall be at the Salt Sea. This shall be your land according to the borders of it round about.

World English Bible · Public Domain

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לִגְבֻלֹתֶ֖יהָ

gᵉbûwlâh

H1367

“to/for · boundaries · her”

Preposition + Noun, Common, Feminine, Plural, Construct + Suffix, Personal, 3rd Person, Feminine, Singular

Appears 10× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears at Numbers 32:33

Full BDB Definition

Origin: from H1366

TWOT: 307b

border, boundary

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 →

13: words
11: distinct lemmas
Pentateuch: section

Notable vocabulary

The rarest word here is לִגְבֻלֹתֶ֖יהָ boundary H1367 — appearing just 10 times in the whole Hebrew Bible.

Shared distinctive vocabulary

לִגְבֻלֹתֶ֖יהָ boundary H1367 occurs in 10 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:

Grammatical profile

3 verbs
8 nouns
1 pronoun
1 preposition

Verb forms

וְיָרַ֤ד Qal · Sequential Perfect
וְהָי֥וּ Qal · Sequential Perfect
תִּהְיֶ֨ה Qal · Imperfect

Repetition

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

וְהָי֥וּ to be H1961 ×2

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 34 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 13 Hebrew tokens and 24 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 34:12 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.

Numbers 34:3 then your south quarter shall be from the wilderness of Zin along by the side of Edom, and your south border shall be from the end of the Salt Sea eastward;
Genesis 13:10 Lot lifted up his eyes, and saw all the plain of the Jordan, that it was well watered every where, before Yahweh destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, like the garden of Yahweh, like the land of Egypt, as you go to Zoar.
Genesis 14:3 All these joined together in the valley of Siddim (the same is the Salt Sea).
Genesis 19:24–26 Then Yahweh rained on Sodom and on Gomorrah sulfur and fire from Yahweh out of the sky.

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 34:12 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

וְיָרַ֤ד הַגְּבוּל֙ הַיַּרְדֵּ֔נָה וְהָי֥וּ תוֹצְאֹתָ֖יו יָ֣ם הַמֶּ֑לַח זֹאת֩ תִּהְיֶ֨ה לָכֶ֥ם הָאָ֛רֶץ לִגְבֻלֹתֶ֖יהָ סָבִֽיב

and the border shall go down to the Jordan, and the goings out of it shall be at the Salt Sea. This shall be your land according to the borders of it round about.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX Numbers 34:12 Septuagint · lemma form

καί καταβαίνω ὁ ὅριον ἐπί ὁ ἰορδάνης καί εἰμί ὁ διέξοδος θάλασσα ὁ ἁλυκός οὗτος εἰμί σύ ὁ γῆ καί ὁ ὅριον αὐτός κύκλος

And the border shall go down to Jordan, and the termination shall be the salt sea; this shall be your land and its borders round about.

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)

וְיֵחוֹת תְּחוּמָא לְיַרְדְנָא וִיהוֹן מַפְקָנוֹהִי לְיַמָא דְמִלְחָא דָא תְהֵי לְכוֹן אַרְעָא לִתְחוּמָאָה סְחוֹר סְחוֹר

(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)

וְיֵיחוֹת תְּחוּמָא לְיוֹרְדְנָא וְיֶהֱווֹן מִפְקָנוֹי לְיַמָא דְמִלְחָא רֵיקָם גֵיעָה מִן דָרוֹמָא טַוְורוֹס אוּמָנוֹס מִן צִפּוּנָא יַמָא רַבָּא מִן מַעַרְבָא יַמָא דְמִלְחָא מִן מַדִינְחָא דָא תֶּהֱוֵי לְכוֹן אַרְעָא דְיִשְרָאֵל לְמִצְרָנֵי תְחוּמָהָא חֲזוֹר חֲזוֹר

And the border shall descend to the Jordan, and its outgoing be at the Sea of Salt. Rekem Giah on the south, Mount Umanos on the north, the Great Sea on the west, the Sea of Salt on the east,-this shall be your country, the Land of Israel, by the extent of its borders round about.

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 34:12 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

Num 34:12 And the border shall go down to Jordan, and the goings out of it shall be at the salt sea: this shall be your land with the coasts thereof round about.

Ver. 12. It shall be at the salt sea.] That is, the Lake of Sodom, called also Asphaltites, and the Dead Sea. Josephus saith, that an ox, having all his legs bound, will not sink into the water of this sea, it is so dense.

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

34:12 The natural eastern border of Canaan followed the Jordan River down to the Dead Sea. As part of the Great Rift Valley, the Jordan and the Dead Sea were formidable, though not impassable, barriers. This boundary excluded the lands east of the Jordan that were occupied by Reuben, Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh. Those settlements were not part of Canaan per se and stood outside the Promised Land as originally defined.

Adam Clarke's Commentary

Verse 12. The border shall go down to Jordan] This river is famous both in the Old and New Testaments. It takes its rise at the foot of Mount Libanus, passes through the sea of Chinnereth or Tiberias, and empties itself into the lake Asphaltites or Dead Sea, from which it has no outlet. In and by it God wrought many miracles. God cut off the waters of this river as he did those of the Red Sea, so that they stood on a heap on each side, and the people passed over on dry ground. Both Elijah and Elisha separated its waters in a miraculous way, 2Kg 2:8-14. Naaman, the Syrian general, by washing in it at the command of the prophet, was miraculously cured of his leprosy, 2Kg 5:10-14. In this river John baptized great multitudes of Jews; and in it was CHRIST himself baptized, and the Spirit of God descended upon him, and the voice from heaven proclaimed him the great and only Teacher and Saviour of men, Mt 3:16-17; Mr 1:5-11.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

John Gill's Exposition

And the border shall go down to Jordan,.... A well known river to the east of the land of Canaan:

and the goings out of it shall be at the salt sea; the sea of Sodom; and though all sea water is generally salt, this was remarkably so, through the great quantity of bitumen and nitre in it; hence it was called Asphaltites; thus as the description of the borders of the land began with the salt sea, Num 34:3, it ends with it:

this shall be your land, with the coasts thereof round about: which, according to the Targum of Jonathan, was thus bounded, Rekamgea (or Kadeshbarnea) on the south, Taurus Urnanus (by which he interprets Mount Hor) on the north, the great sea on the west (i.e. the Mediterranean sea), and the salt sea on the east.

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

Down to Jordan, i.e. all along the river of Jordan, even to the end of it, which is the eastern border.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword 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 13 words (11 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is gᵉbûwlâh (“boundary”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

What does “boundary” (gᵉbûwlâh) contribute to the verse as a whole?
Numbers 32:33 shares the word «boundary» with this verse. How do the two illuminate each other?
“to be” occurs 2× in this one verse. What is the effect of the repetition?
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?
The verb «וְיָרַ֤ד» is Qal Sequential Perfect. How does its form color the action?
Reading how Trapp's Complete Commentary and Tyndale Open Study Notes read this verse, where do the two commentators agree and where do they part?

Things to notice

This verse counts 13 Hebrew ↔ 24 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 15 words in this verse.
“to be” occurs 2× in this single verse.
11 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 13 words in this verse.