Numbers 21:32

Summary

The verse narrates that Moses sent men to reconnoiter the town of Jazer; as a result, its dependent settlements were captured and the Amorite population living there was driven out.

Key words

• ra.Gel ("spy out", H7270) — piel infinitive construct after the preposition le ("to"), expressing purpose: "in order to spy out."
• ya'.Zer ("Jazer", H3270G) — proper name of a place, marked as direct object by 'et (H0853), the target of the spying action.
• be.no.Tei.ha ("its daughters", H1323H) — feminine plural noun in construct form with pronominal suffix ha ("her/its"), literally "daughters of it," an idiomatic Hebrew way of referring to dependent villages or settlements belonging to a main town.
• i.yi.resh ("it dispossessed", H3423H) — hiphil (causative) narrative verb, meaning the subject caused the Amorite to be removed/dispossessed, stronger than a simple "leaving" or "going."
• 'a.Sher-Sham ("who [was] there", H0834A + H8033G) — relative clause anchoring the Amorite population to the specific location just mentioned.

What the text says

The verse is built as a chain of three narrative (vav-consecutive) verbs, each introducing a sequential action: va-yishlach ("and he sent," H7971G), va-yilkedu ("and they captured," H3920), and va-yoresh ("and it dispossessed," H3423H). The subject of the first verb is explicitly Moses (Mosheh, H4872), who sends [unnamed persons, understood from context] with the stated purpose of "spying out" (ragel, H7270) Jazer. The subject of the second and third verbs shifts to an unstated plural/singular group — grammatically only "they" (masc. pl.) for capturing and "he/it" (masc. sg., via the hiphil form) for dispossessing — which the Hebrew text does not name explicitly in this verse.

The phrase benoteiha ("its daughters," H1323H) uses the construct feminine plural noun with a pronominal suffix referring back to Jazer, an idiom in Biblical Hebrew for smaller settlements or dependent villages attached to a central town, rather than literal offspring. The final clause identifies the object of dispossession as ha-Emori ("the Amorite," H0567), a gentilic noun (referring to the people collectively), qualified by the relative clause asher-sham ("who was there," H0834A + H8033G), anchoring their presence to the specific location without further geographic elaboration.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders benoteiha ("its daughters") as "αὐτὴν καὶ τὰς κώμας αὐτῆς" ("it and its villages"), making explicit what the Hebrew idiom implies, and includes Jazer itself as captured, not only its dependent settlements. The Vulgate similarly interprets benoteiha as "viculos" ("little villages") and describes the inhabitants as "habitatores" ("inhabitants"), a more generic term than the Hebrew's specific ha-Emori ("the Amorite," H0567). The Hebrew verb yoresh (hiphil, "caused to be dispossessed," H3423H) is rendered by the LXX as "ἐξέβαλον" ("they drove out/expelled") and by the Vulgate as "possederunt" ("they took possession of"), the latter shifting the emphasis from removal of the Amorites to the Israelites' acquisition of the land.