Deuteronomy 23:4

Summary

The verse gives the reasons for a preceding prohibition: certain peoples did not meet the Israelites with food and water on the road out of Egypt, and they additionally hired Balaam son of Beor, from Pethor in Aram-Naharaim, to curse them.

Key words

• ki.de.Mu — qiddemu ("they met", H6923): piel perfect, 3rd plural, describing a completed failure to act — the verb itself carries an intensive nuance of "coming to meet/confront."
• de.Var — dabar ("thing/matter", H1697M): masculine singular construct, opening the clause "concerning the matter that..." — sets up a causal explanation rather than a simple narrative statement.
• sa.Khar — sakhar ("he hired", H7936B): qal perfect, 3rd masculine singular, a plain completed action naming the second offense.
• tze.te. — tzeit ("coming out", H3318G): qal infinitive with pronominal suffix khem ("your"), forming a temporal clause "in your coming out," i.e., "when you came out."
• Ka.Le. — qallel ("to curse", H7043): piel infinitive with suffix kha ("you"), expressing purpose — "in order to curse you."

What the text says

The verse opens with 'al-dabar 'asher ("concerning the matter that"), a construct phrase that frames everything following as an explanation or justification, rather than a new independent event. The first clause states that "they did not meet you (qiddemu 'etkhem) with the food (ba-lechem) and with the water (u-va-mayim) on the way (ba-derekh)," using the piel perfect negated by lo' ("not") to describe a completed failure at a specific past moment. The temporal clause "be-tze'tkhem mi-Mitzrayim" ("when you came out from Egypt") anchors this failure to the Exodus journey, using the infinitive construct with a pronominal suffix, a common Hebrew way to express "when you did X" without a separate finite verb.

The second half is joined by va-'asher ("and that/who"), introducing a parallel accusation: "he hired (sakhar) against you ('aleikha) Balaam son of Beor from Pethor, Aram-Naharaim." The direct object marker 'et precedes "Balaam" ('et-Bil'am), confirming him as the object of the hiring. The final infinitive le-qallelekha ("to curse you") expresses the purpose of the hiring, using the piel stem, which in Hebrew often intensifies the action denoted by the root — here "curse" as a deliberate, purposeful act rather than incidental speech.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders Aram Naharayim (H0763G, "Aram of the two rivers") as "Mesopotamia" (Μεσοποταμίας), a geographic equivalence rather than a transliteration. The Vulgate similarly translates it as "Mesopotamia Syriae," adding "Syriae" not explicit in the Hebrew, which only names the region Aram Naharayim. The Hebrew text uses two parallel relative clauses ('asher... va-'asher) to link both accusations under a single causal heading ('al-dabar), while the LXX and Vulgate render this with slightly looser causal conjunctions ("παρὰ τὸ... καὶ ὅτι" / "quia... et quia"), splitting the reasoning into two more distinct causal statements.