Deuteronomy 2:27

Summary

In this verse Moses (or his messenger) asks permission to cross the land of Sihon, promising to stay strictly on the main road and not to deviate to either side. The Hebrew emphasizes the request through verbal repetition and directional vocabulary.

Key words

• 'e'ebrah ("let me pass", H5674A) — qal form of the verb "to pass, cross"; here used with a volitional/cohortative sense ("let me pass"), expressing a request rather than a plain statement of fact.
• Derekh ("road", H1870L / H1870K) — the same noun appears twice in sequence, each instance carrying a distinct Strong number in this dataset, marking the doubled phrase ba-derekh ba-derekh ("on the road, on the road").
• 'eLekh ("I will go", H1980G) — qal imperfect, first person, expressing ongoing or future action: "I will go."
• 'aSur ("I will turn aside", H5493I) — qal imperfect, negated by lo' ("not", H3808), forming "I will not turn aside."
• yaMin ("right [hand]", H3225G) and seMol ("left [hand]", H8040G) — bare nouns without prepositions, naming the two directions from which the speaker promises not to deviate.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built from four short clauses in sequence: "let me pass in your land," "on the road, on the road I will go," "I will not turn aside," "right and left." The verb 'e'ebrah ("let me pass", H5674A) opens the request, followed by be-'artzekha ("in your land", built on H0776G with a second-person suffix), specifying the territory. The phrase ba-derekh ba-derekh repeats the noun Derekh ("road") twice in immediate succession — a doubling that intensifies the sense of staying strictly on a single path, rather than roaming freely through the land. The following verb 'eLekh ("I will go", H1980G) confirms the manner of travel already announced by the doubled noun.

The final clause negates 'aSur ("I will turn aside", H5493I) with lo' ("not", H3808), and then names the two directions, yaMin ("right", H3225G) and seMol ("left", H8040G), joined by the conjunction u- ("and", H9002). Notably, the Hebrew nouns for "right" and "left" stand bare, without any preposition meaning "to" attached to them, so the construction reads literally "I will not turn aside, right and left" rather than "to the right or to the left."

Differences between versions

The Hebrew doubles the noun Derekh ("road") — ba-derekh ba-derekh — while the LXX renders it only once, ἐν τῇ ὁδῷ ("in the road"), and the Vulgate similarly gives a single phrase, publica... via ("by the public road"), adding the qualifier "public" not present in the Hebrew wording. For the final clause, the Hebrew nouns yaMin and seMol appear without a directional preposition, whereas both the LXX (δεξιὰ... ἀριστερά, accusative of direction) and the Vulgate (ad dexteram... ad sinistram, "to the right... to the left") supply an explicit "to" not marked in the Hebrew text itself.