Numbers 21:29

Summary

The verse is a taunt-song addressed to Moab, declaring its ruin under the patron god Chemosh. It states that Moab's sons were made fugitives and its daughters taken captive, delivered to Sihon, king of the Amorites.

Key words

• 'oy ("woe!", H0188) — an interjection of lament, opening the verse as a funerary or mocking cry directed at Moab.
• 'avadta ("you have perished", H0006) — qal perfect, second person masculine, addressing Moab directly as a completed, finished state of ruin.
• natan ("he has made/given", H5414I) — qal perfect, third person masculine singular; the grammatical subject is not named in the clause, leaving open whether it refers to Chemosh, to Moab, or to an unspecified agent of the disaster.
• peletim ("fugitives", H6412B) — masculine plural noun functioning as the direct complement of natan, describing the sons' fate as escapees rather than captives.
• shevit ("captivity", H7622) — feminine singular noun with the preposition ba ("in"), describing the daughters' fate with a different grammatical construction than the sons' (prepositional phrase instead of direct object).

What the text says

The verse opens with the interjection 'oy ("woe!", H0188) followed by the preposition-plus-suffix lekha ("to you") and the vocative Mo'av ("Moab", H4124G), a direct address. The next clause, 'avadta 'am-Kemosh ("you have perished, people of Chemosh"), uses the second-person perfect verb 'avad (H0006) to declare Moab's downfall as already accomplished, then identifies the nation by its god Chemosh (H3645) in a construct phrase, "people of Chemosh."

The following section is grammatically asymmetric. A single perfect verb, natan (H5414I, "he gave/made"), governs two parallel objects with different syntax: "his sons" (banav, H1121A construct + suffix) takes peletim (H6412B) as a direct-object complement ("made [them] fugitives"), while "his daughters" (venotav, H1323G construct + suffix) is followed by the prepositional phrase ba-shevit ("into captivity", H7622) rather than a second direct object. The subject of natan is not stated explicitly in the Hebrew — the third-person masculine form could point back to Chemosh mentioned just before, or remain an unspecified agent. The final phrase, le-melekh 'emori Sichon ("to the king of the Amorites, Sihon"), identifies the recipient of this handing-over using a construct chain (melekh 'emori, "king of Amorite") followed by the proper name in apposition.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders natan with a passive verb, apedothēsan ("they were given/delivered"), removing the ambiguous third-person subject present in the Hebrew active form. The Vulgate keeps an active construction ("dedit", "he gave"), matching the Hebrew's grammatical structure, but likewise does not name the subject explicitly. The Hebrew's asymmetric object structure (direct object for the sons, prepositional phrase for the daughters) is smoothed out in both the LXX and Vulgate, which treat "sons" and "daughters" with parallel grammatical constructions.