Deuteronomy 3:1

Summary

The verse narrates a change of direction in the itinerary: the group turns and goes up toward Bashan, where Og, king of Bashan, comes out with his entire army to confront them in battle at the city of Edrei.

Key words

• va-Ne.fen ("and we turned", H6437G) — qal narrative form (vav-consecutive) with 1st person plural subject, marking a new stage in the journey.
• va-Na.'al ("and we went up", H5927G) — second verb in the narrative chain, also 1st plural, describing upward movement along the route.
• De.rekh ("way of", H1870K) — noun in construct state, linking directly to ha-Bashan ("the Bashan", H1316) to form "the way of Bashan."
• li-k.ra.Te.nu ("to meet us", H7122H) — infinitive construct with prefixed preposition li ("to", H9005) and pronominal suffix nu ("us", H9035), expressing purpose ("in order to meet us").
• mil.cha.Mah ("battle", H4421) — feminine singular noun preceded by la ("for the", H9005+H9009), indicating the goal of Og's advance ("for battle").

What the text says

The verse opens with two verbs joined by the narrative vav-consecutive construction: va-Ne.fen ("and we turned") followed by va-Na.'al ("and we went up"). Both carry a 1st person plural subject embedded in the verb form itself, without a separate pronoun, which is typical of Hebrew narrative sequencing — each vav-form advances the story as "and then X happened." The phrase De.rekh ha-Bashan ("the way of the Bashan") uses a construct chain to specify the road's destination.

The second half of the verse shifts subject to Og through the verb ye.Tze' ("he came forth", H3318G), again a narrative form. Og is identified by his title Me.lekh-ha-Bashan ("king of the Bashan"), another construct phrase. The purpose of his coming out is expressed through the infinitive construct li-k.ra.Te.nu ("to meet us"), which grammatically encodes both the action ("to meet") and its object ("us") in a single word via the pronominal suffix. The independent pronoun hu' ("he", H1931) reinforces the subject Og before adding ve-khol-am-mo ("and all his people"), a construct chain meaning "and all of his people." The final phrase la-mil.cha.Mah ("for the battle") uses the preposition-plus-article construction to state the purpose of the encounter, and the verse closes with the place name Ed.re.'i ("Edrei", H154).

Differences between versions

The LXX renders Og as "Γὼγ" (Gog) and Edrei as "Ἐδράειμ," slight transliteration variants of the Hebrew proper names. The Vulgate keeps "Og" and "Edrai," closer to the Hebrew forms. The Hebrew ve-khol-am-mo ("and all his people") is rendered in the BSB as "his whole army," an interpretive translation not literally present in the Hebrew noun am ("people", H5971A), which does not specifically mean "army."