Numbers 21:22

Summary

The speaker requests permission to pass through the addressee's territory, promising not to turn aside into any field or vineyard, not to drink water from local wells, and to travel only on "the king's road" until having passed beyond the border. The verse is structured as a series of negated and affirmed intentions expressed through first-person plural verbs.

Key words

• 'e'ebrah ("let me pass", H5674A) — a qal verb form glossed as infinitive but functioning as a request/intention ("let me pass"), opening the speech with the speaker's purpose.
• nitteh ("we will turn aside", H5186) — qal imperfect, first person plural, negated by lo' ("not", H3808), denying any deviation from the path.
• derekh ha-melekh ("way of the king", H1870I + H9009 + H4428I) — a construct phrase, "road of the king," naming a specific route to be followed.
• na'avor ("we will pass through", H5674A) — qal imperfect, same root as 'e'ebrah, marking the endpoint of the journey ("until we pass through").
• gevulekha ("your territory", H1366H) — construct noun with second-person suffix, denoting the boundary that marks completion of the passage.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built from a chain of short clauses, each governed by a first-person plural imperfect verb (nitteh, "we will turn aside"; nishteh, "we will drink"; nelekh, "we will go"; na'avor, "we will pass through"), all negated except the final two. This repetitive verbal pattern creates a rhythm of assurance: each potential action that could cause offense (leaving the road, drinking from wells) is denied with lo' ("not", H3808), while the permitted action (staying on "the way of the king," derekh ha-melekh) is affirmed positively. The construct chains — sadeh...kerem ("field...vineyard"), mei ve'er ("water of a well", H4325G), gevulekha ("your territory") — specify exactly what is avoided or what marks the limit of the journey. The clause 'ad 'asher na'avor gevulekha ("until that we pass through your territory") uses the relative particle 'asher (H0834A) to bind the temporal limit to the verb na'avor, the same root used at the start ('e'ebrah), forming a frame around the whole speech: the passage begins and ends with the verb "to pass through."

Differences between versions

The LXX renders derekh ha-melekh ("way of the king") as ὁδῷ βασιλικῇ ("royal road"), an adjectival construction rather than the Hebrew's construct noun phrase. The Vulgate similarly uses via regia ("royal way"), matching the LXX's adjectival sense rather than the Hebrew's literal "way of the king." The Hebrew 'e'ebrah opens as a first-person singular form ("let me pass"), while the LXX's Παρελευσόμεθα and the Vulgate's transire (with liceat mihi, "may it be permitted to me") both shift toward first-person plural or impersonal framing in the surrounding verbs, consistent with the plural verbs that follow in the Hebrew itself.