Deuteronomy 23:5

Summary

The verse states that Yehovah refused to listen to Balaam's intended curse against Israel, and instead reversed that curse into a blessing, explaining this action as motivated by his love for the addressee.

Key words

• lo'-'aVah ("not... he was willing", H3808 + H0014) — the negated qal perfect verb expresses a completed refusal; Yehovah's unwillingness is presented as a settled, past fact, not an ongoing state.
• lishMoa' ("to listen", H8085) — qal infinitive construct with the preposition li ("to"), forming the purpose/object of the refusal: "he was not willing to listen."
• vayyahaFokh ("and he turned", H2015) — qal verb with the narrative vav prefix, which chains this action directly to the previous clause as the next event in sequence: refusal is immediately followed by reversal.
• haqqelaLah ("the curse", H7045) — definite noun marked with the article ha (H9009) and the object marker 'et (H0853), identifying it as the specific, definite object being transformed.
• 'aheVekha ("he loved you", H0157) — qal perfect verb with second-person suffix, giving the causal clause introduced by ki ("for/that", H3588) that grounds the prior actions.

What the text says

The verse contains three verbal actions built around the repeated subject Yehovah 'eloHeikha ("Yehovah your God", H3068 + H0430), stated three times, once per clause. The first clause uses a negated qal perfect, lo' 'aVah ("he was not willing"), governing the infinitive lishMoa' 'el Bil'am ("to listen to Balaam"). This construction presents the non-listening as a completed decision rather than a process. The second clause opens with the narrative vav attached to vayyahaFokh ("and he turned/reversed"), a grammatical device that sequences this action as following directly from the first: because Yehovah refused to listen, he turned the curse. The object of this reversal is marked explicitly with 'et and the article, 'et-haqqelaLah ("the curse"), and the preposition li before veraKhah ("into a blessing") shows the direction of transformation — from one state into another, not merely alongside it.

The final clause is introduced by ki (H3588A), which the glosses mark as either causal ("for") or conditional ("that/if"); here it functions causally, tying the reversal of the curse to the stated reason 'aheVekha Yehovah 'eloHeikha ("Yehovah your God loved you"), a qal perfect verb indicating a completed past disposition preceding these events.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the second-person suffix construction lekha ("for you", H9031 attached to le-) somewhat differently in flow but preserves the sense "turned...into a blessing." The Vulgate reads maledictionem ejus ("his curse"), inserting a third-person possessive ("his") not explicitly present in the Hebrew text as parsed here, where the curse is simply marked definite (haqqelaLah, "the curse") without a possessive suffix. The Vulgate also shifts benedictionem tuam ("your blessing") to a possessive form ("your blessing") rather than the Hebrew's directional li-veraKhah ("into a blessing").