Deuteronomy 2:28

Summary

The speaker (Moses, addressing Sihon) asks to buy food and water for silver, promising to eat and drink what is purchased, and states that his only wish is to pass through the land on foot.

Key words

• tashbireni ("you will sell me", H7666) — hiphil (causative) imperfect: the causative stem frames the request as "cause me to acquire [food] through sale," not a simple purchase verb.
• 'akhalti ("I will eat", H0398) — qal sequential perfect, continuing the narrative chain begun by the preceding verb; it presents eating as the natural consequence of the sale.
• titen ("you will give", H5414G) — qal imperfect, parallel to tashbireni, forming the second half of a balanced two-part request (food/silver // water/silver).
• 'e'ebrah ("let me pass through", H5674A) — a first-person volitive form (glossed here as infinitive) expressing intention or request, distinct from a plain future.
• raglai ("my feet", H7272) — dual construct noun with 1st-person suffix; the dual form reflects the paired body part, and the phrase functions idiomatically for "on foot."

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built as two parallel clauses: "food, for silver, you will sell me, and I will eat" ('okhel ba-kesef tashbireni ve-'akhalti) and "water, for silver, you will give to me, and I will drink" (u-mayim ba-kesef titen li ve-shatiti). Both clauses place the object ('okhel, "food"; mayim, "water") first, followed by the repeated phrase ba-kesef ("for the silver," H3701G), then the verb of transaction, then the verb of consumption in the sequential perfect. This word order foregrounds the payment condition before the action, and the repetition of ba-kesef in both lines creates a rhetorical symmetry rare to preserve in translation.

The final clause, introduced by rak ("only," H7535), narrows the scope of the request: after establishing that everything will be paid for, the speaker states that the only thing wanted is passage be-raglai — "on my feet," a physical, non-military image of movement. The first-person singular forms (-ni, -i, ti) run consistently through the verse, marking the request as coming from a single voice, even though it concerns a group's crossing of territory.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew and the LXX preserve singular first-person forms throughout: tashbireni / μοι, 'akhalti / φάγομαι, titen li / μοι, shatiti / πίομαι, 'e'ebrah / παρελεύσομαι. The Vulgate shifts to plural forms — "nobis" ("to us"), "vescamur" ("we may eat"), "bibemus" ("we will drink") — turning an individually-voiced request into a collective one. The BSB translation follows this plural pattern ("sell us... let us pass"), while the RV1909 and SBLIBRE retain the singular "me," matching the Hebrew and LXX grammar.