Numbers 21:25

Summary

The verse reports two sequential actions: Israel took ("vayyiqqach") a group of unnamed cities, and then Israel settled ("vayyeshev") in the cities of the Amorites, specifically identifying Heshbon and its surrounding towns as the location of this settlement.

Key words

• vayyiqqach ("it took", H3947G) — qal narrative form (vav-consecutive imperfect), marking the first event in the sequence: Israel's capture of the cities.
• 'et ("", H0853) — the direct object marker, syntactically flagging he'arim ha'elleh ("these cities") as the object taken; it carries no independent meaning.
• vayyeshev ("it dwelt", H3427) — a second qal narrative verb, showing the consequence of the taking: occupation/settlement follows capture.
• ha'Emori ("Amorite", H0567) — a gentilic noun (singular form used collectively) identifying the ethnic group whose cities were occupied.
• benoteiha ("her daughters", H1323H) — feminine plural construct with a pronominal suffix ("its/her"), an idiomatic Hebrew expression for smaller settlements dependent on or surrounding a main city (Heshbon).

What the text says

The sentence is built on two vav-consecutive narrative verbs, a standard structure in Biblical Hebrew for reporting sequential past events: first vayyiqqach ("and it took"), then vayyeshev ("and it dwelt"). This grammar presents the capture and the subsequent settlement as two distinct but connected narrative moments, rather than a single simultaneous action.

The object of the first verb, kol-he'arim ha'elleh ("all these cities"), is marked by the direct object particle 'et and modified by the demonstrative 'elleh ("these"), pointing back to cities mentioned earlier in the context. The second clause narrows the geographic scope: Israel dwells specifically be-khol-'arei ha'Emori ("in all the cities of the Amorite"), with Heshbon named as the primary site, followed by kol-benoteiha ("all her daughters"). The construct chain benot + suffix -eha ("her") is a Hebrew idiom in which smaller towns are described as "daughters" of a principal city — grammatically feminine plural nouns tied by suffix to the feminine name Heshbon.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew idiom benoteiha ("her daughters") is not rendered literally in either the Greek or Latin. The LXX uses ταῖς συνκυρούσαις αὐτῇ ("the [towns] surrounding/adjoining her"), and the Vulgate uses viculis ejus ("her little towns/hamlets"). Both versions replace the "daughter" metaphor with a term describing geographic or administrative relationship rather than preserving the kinship image present in the Hebrew construct form.