Numbers 20:21

Summary

Edom refuses to allow Israel to cross through its territory, and in response Israel turns away and travels around Edom's land instead.

Key words

• y.ma.'En ("it refused", H3985) — piel narrative verb, third person masculine singular; the intensive stem underscores a firm, deliberate refusal by Edom.
• ne.Ton ("to permit", H5414G) — qal infinitive, complementing the verb of refusal: what Edom refused was "to permit."
• 'a.Vor ("to pass", H5674A) — qal infinitive, the action Edom would not permit: Israel's "passing" through.
• g.vu.L + o ("its territory", H1366H + H9023) — construct noun with pronominal suffix, meaning "his/its border/territory," specifying the boundary Edom controlled.
• i.Yet ("it turned aside", H5186) — qal narrative verb, third person masculine singular, marking Israel's consequent action of diverting course.

What the text says

The verse is built on two chained narrative clauses connected by the vav ("and") prefix, typical of Hebrew narrative sequence: first Edom's refusal, then Israel's turning aside. The first clause centers on y.ma.'En ("it refused", H3985), a piel verb, followed by two qal infinitives — ne.Ton ("to permit", H5414G) and 'a.Vor ("to pass", H5674A) — stacked to express what exactly was refused: "to permit... to pass." This infinitive chain is a common Hebrew construction where one infinitive depends on another to clarify the object of the main verb's action.

The direct object marker 'et (H0853) before Yis.ra.'El ("Israel", H3478) signals that Israel is the grammatical object of the infinitive "to permit," i.e., Edom refused to permit Israel (to pass). The phrase bi-g.vu.lo ("in its territory", H9003 + H1366H + H9023) uses the preposition bi ("in") with the construct noun and suffix, locating the passage specifically within Edom's own bounded land.

The second clause shifts subject to Israel with i.Yet ("it turned aside", H5186), followed by me-'a.La-v ("from upon it/him", H9006 + H5921A + H9033), a compound preposition indicating movement away from a position. The construction me ("from") plus 'a.La ("on/upon") plus the suffix "his/its" together produce the sense of moving away from being "over" or "against" Edom's territory — Israel departs from the vicinity rather than crossing it.

Differences between versions

The LXX (Swete) begins with a doubled καὶ ("and and"), likely a textual duplication, and renders the Hebrew infinitive chain as δοῦναι...παρελθεῖν ("to give...to pass through"), matching the Hebrew's two-infinitive structure but using διὰ τῶν ὁρίων ("through the borders") rather than a direct equivalent of bi-g.vu.lo ("in its territory"). The Vulgate (Clementine) adds interpretive material absent from the Hebrew, such as "deprecanti" ("to the one entreating"), which specifies that Israel was begging permission — a detail not present in the Hebrew text itself. The Vulgate also frames Israel's departure with "Quam ob rem" ("for this reason"), making the causal link between refusal and departure explicit, whereas the Hebrew simply juxtaposes the two narrative clauses with the vav-conjunction.