Numbers 14:16

Summary

This verse records the words the nations are imagined to say about Yehovah if he fails to bring Israel into the promised land: that his slaughtering the people in the wilderness would be proof of his inability to fulfill his oath. The clause is framed as a causal explanation for the people's death, attributed to divine incapacity.

Key words

• bilti ("because not", H1115) — a negative particle here combined with the preposition min to form the idiomatic phrase "from the not-being-able," expressing the alleged cause of the events that follow.
• yekholet ("was able", H3201) — a qal infinitive functioning as an abstract noun ("ability/capacity"); together with bilti it produces the sense "for lack of ability."
• lehavi ("bring", H0935P) — a hiphil (causative) infinitive: not simply "to come" but "to cause to come/to bring," describing the action Yehovah allegedly could not accomplish.
• nishba ("he swore", H7650) — a niphal perfect, the standard verbal stem for the verb "to swear" in Hebrew (denominative from the root meaning "seven"); it marks a completed prior act, the oath already made to the ancestors.
• vayyishchatem ("and he has slaughtered them", H7819A) — a qal verb with narrative vav, continuing the sequence of reported speech: the slaughter is presented as the direct narrative consequence of the stated inability.

What the text says

The verse opens with a compound causal construction, mi-bilti yekholet Yehovah le-havi — literally "from the not-ability of Yehovah to bring" — a Hebrew idiom that expresses a reason through two stacked infinitives (yekholet, "ability," and lehavi, "to bring") rather than a finite verb clause. This construction places the emphasis on the abstract notion of capacity/incapacity itself, prior to any action. The object of the infinitive lehavi is marked explicitly by 'et before ha'am hazzeh ("the people, this one"), a direct object marker with no independent meaning in translation, followed by the destination ha'aretz ("the land") specified by a relative clause: "which he swore to them" (nishba' lahem), using the niphal perfect to denote a completed oath.

The clause then shifts from this infinitival explanation to a finite narrative verb, vayyishchatem ("and he slaughtered them"), joined by the narrative vav. This shift mirrors the logical movement from stated cause (inability) to reported effect (killing) within the same sentence, all attributed as hypothetical speech to be spoken by outside observers of Israel's fate.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew uses two infinitives (yekholet, lehavi) to express the causal idea, and the Septuagint mirrors this with infinitives (δύνασθαι, εἰσαγαγεῖν). The Vulgate instead uses a finite verb, poterat ("he was not able," imperfect), and adds the connector idcirco ("therefore") before the second clause, making the causal link explicit in a way the Hebrew's simple narrative vav does not.