Deuteronomy 3:23

Summary

The verse opens Moses' account of a personal plea directed to Yehovah, marking a specific past moment ("that time") and introducing direct speech that follows. It functions as a narrative hinge, shifting from historical recounting to quoted prayer.

Key words

• 'et.cha.Nan ("I sought favor", H2603A) — Hithpael (reflexive/intensive) verb form, first person singular, carrying a narrative sense of sequence ("and then I..."). The Hithpael stem often conveys seeking favor for oneself, distinct from a simple request.
• 'el ("to", H0413) — preposition marking the direction of the plea, indicating the entreaty is directed toward a specific recipient.
• Yehovah ("Yehovah", H3068G) — the divine name, functioning here as the object of the preposition 'el, identifying to whom the plea is made.
• ba'Et haHiv' ("at the time / that", H6256 + H1931) — a noun with article plus demonstrative pronoun, forming the temporal phrase "at that time," anchoring the plea to a specific narrative moment already established in the surrounding context.
• leMor ("saying", H0559) — Qal infinitive construct with the prefixed preposition le-, functioning as a formal introduction to direct speech, equivalent to "as follows."

What the text says

The verse begins with the narrative vav (va-, H9001) attached to the verb 'et.cha.Nan, which is standard for continuing a sequence of past events in Biblical Hebrew narrative — the construction signals "and then I did X" as the next step in the story. The verb itself is in the Hithpael stem, a form often associated with reflexive or self-directed action; here it denotes the speaker seeking favor, distinguishing this act from a neutral or formal request.

The phrase 'el-Yehovah uses the preposition 'el ("to/toward") to indicate the direction of the entreaty, syntactically placing Yehovah as the recipient of the action rather than using a different construction that might imply a different relational nuance. The temporal phrase ba'Et haHiv' ("at that time") is built from the noun 'Et ("time", H6256) with the definite article, followed by the demonstrative pronoun hiv' ("that", H1931), also carrying the article — a common Hebrew way of referring back to a moment already established in the preceding narrative context.

The final word, leMor ("saying"), is an infinitive construct that formally opens the direct speech to follow, a standard formulaic marker in Biblical Hebrew narrative for transitioning from third-person or first-person narration into quoted words.