Numbers 22:14

Summary

The leaders of Moab, having failed to bring Balaam back with them, return to Balak and report that Balaam has refused to accompany them. The verse closes the narrative unit of the first delegation sent to summon Balaam.

Key words

• sarei ("[the] leaders of", H8269) — masculine plural construct, linking directly to mo'av ("Moab", H4124G); identifies the subject as an official group, not just messengers.
• yavo'u ("they went/came", H0935G) — qal narrative form of the general verb "to come/enter"; it does not specify "return," only arrival at a destination (here, to Balak).
• me'en ("he has refused", H3985) — piel perfect; the piel stem intensifies the verb, and the perfect aspect marks the refusal as a completed, settled fact by the time the leaders speak.
• halokh ("to come/to go", H1980H) — qal infinitive of the root meaning "to walk/go"; used here as a complement to me'en, forming the idiom "refused to go."
• 'immanu ("with us", H5973A + H9035) — preposition with first-person plural suffix, anchoring the refusal to the perspective of the Moabite delegation.

What the text says

The verse is built on three sequential narrative-vav clauses: vayyaqumu ("and they arose"), vayyavo'u ("and they went/came"), vayyomeru ("and they said"). This chain is the standard Hebrew narrative structure marking consecutive completed actions — rising, arriving, speaking — without further temporal markers needed. The subject throughout is sarei mo'av ("the leaders of Moab", H8269 + H4124G), a construct phrase that treats "leaders" and "Moab" as a single bound unit.

The reported speech itself is compact: me'en Bil'am halokh 'immanu — literally "Balaam has refused to go with us." The verb me'en (H3985) is in the piel stem, which here carries an intensive nuance of firm refusal, and its perfect aspect presents the refusal as an accomplished state rather than an ongoing negotiation. The infinitive halokh (H1980H) uses the root for "walking/going" rather than "coming," meaning the Hebrew phrases the refusal from the Moabites' point of departure ("go with us") rather than from Balaam's location.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew yavo'u (H0935G) simply means "they came/went" to Balak, with no notion of "return" built into the root. Both the Vulgate ("Reversi principes...") and the BSB ("returned to Balak") render this as a return, an interpretive addition not present in the base meaning of the verb. The LXX's ἦλθον πρὸς Βαλάκ ("they came to Balak") stays closer to the Hebrew's neutral "came/went." The SBLIBRE further paraphrases vayyomeru ("they said") as "le informaron" ("informed him"), adding explicit reference to Balak as recipient, which the Hebrew verb yomeru (H0559) does not specify.