Numbers 21:1

Summary

The verse reports that the Canaanite king of Arad, who lived in the Negev, heard that Israel was approaching by the way of Atharim. In response he fought against Israel and captured some of them as prisoners.

Key words

• va‑yishma' ("and he heard", H8085G) — qal narrative form; the initial vav links this episode directly to the preceding narrative sequence, presenting the king's hearing as the triggering action.
• melekh-'Arad ("king of Arad", H4428G + H6166A) — construct chain identifying the ruler by his territory, standard for Hebrew royal titles.
• yoshev ha-Negev ("dwelling [in] the Negev", H3427 + H5045G) — participle used attributively, describing the king's habitual location rather than a single completed act.
• ki ("that/because", H3588A) — subordinating particle introducing the content of what the king heard; it frames the report clause (Israel's approach) as the reason for his subsequent action.
• va-yishb mimmenu shevi ("and he took captive some of it, captives", H7617 + H4480A + H7628A) — the verb yishb ("to take captive") is followed by a cognate noun shevi ("captives"), a common Hebrew construction pairing a verb with a noun from the same root to intensify or specify the action.

What the text says

The verse is built as a chain of narrative (vav-consecutive) verbs: va-yishma' ("he heard"), va-yillachem ("he fought", H3898A, niphal), and va-yishb ("he took captive"). This chain presents three sequential actions by the Canaanite king: hearing, fighting, and capturing. Embedded within the first verb is a subordinate clause introduced by ki ("that/because"), which reports the content of what was heard — that Israel ba' ("had come", H0935G, perfect tense) by the derekh ha-'Atarim ("way of Atharim"). The use of the perfect tense for ba' indicates the coming had already been completed at the time the king heard of it, distinguishing this background fact from the sequence of main narrative actions.

The verb yillachem ("he engaged in battle") is in the niphal stem, a form often associated with reciprocal or mutual action in verbs of conflict — it depicts the king as entering into combat with Israel rather than simply performing an act upon them. The final clause pairs the verb yishb ("he took captive") with the cognate noun shevi ("captive," "captives"), a construction that in Biblical Hebrew narrative style reinforces the verbal action through repetition of the root.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders derekh ha-'Atarim ("the way of Atharim") as ὁδὸν Ἀθαρείν, transliterating the place name similarly to the Hebrew, while some translations (e.g., RV1909) render it as "el camino de los centinelas" ("the way of the sentinels"), treating the term as a common noun rather than a proper name. The LXX also renders Negev (H5045G) as κατὰ τὴν ἔρημον ("toward the desert"), a descriptive rendering rather than the proper name found in the Hebrew text. The Vulgate similarly renders Negev as "ad meridiem" ("toward the south"), a directional rendering rather than treating it as a place name.