Numbers 22:15

Summary

The verse reports that Balak, for a second time, sent envoys to Balaam — this time a larger and more distinguished delegation than the first group. The Hebrew frames this as a repeated action using a verb of addition followed by an infinitive of sending.

Key words

• va-yosef ("and he repeated/added", H3254G) — hiphil (causative) verb: literally "he caused to add," idiomatically "he did X again." It governs the infinitive that follows.
• od ("again", H5750) — reinforces the idea of repetition already carried by yosef, making the "doing it again" explicit.
• shelo'ach ("to send", H7971G) — qal infinitive, the action that Balak "added" to do; grammatically dependent on yosef.
• sarim rabim ("leaders", H8269 + "many", H7227A) — noun plus adjective, both masculine plural, describing the quantity of the new delegation.
• nikhbadim ("honored", H3513G) — niphal participle, masculine plural, describing a passive/reflexive state of being honored or distinguished; paired with rabim via the conjunction ve- ("and").

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built around the verb yosef in the hiphil, which does not mean "to send" itself but "to add/repeat," taking the infinitive shelo'ach ("to send") as its complement. This construction — finite verb of addition plus infinitive — is the standard Hebrew way of expressing "he did something again," here rendered as "and Balak again sent." The word od ("again") is added alongside the verb, reinforcing the repetition, so the idea of "doing again" is expressed twice in the clause (once through the hiphil form, once through the adverb od).

The object of the sending is sarim rabim ve-nikhbadim — "leaders, many and honored." Rabim is a plain adjective indicating quantity, while nikhbadim is a niphal participle, a passive/stative form describing men who are regarded as honored or weighty — not an active quality they assert, but a status attributed to them. The final phrase me-elleh ("more than these") uses the preposition min in its comparative sense, comparing this second group explicitly to the earlier one implied by elleh ("these").

Differences between versions

The LXX renders yosef ... od as a single construction, prosetheto ... eti ("he added still"), matching the doubled repetition of the Hebrew. The Vulgate (VULCLEM) drops the explicit "again/repeated" verb structure and instead states directly "he sent again those many more and nobler," compressing the hiphil-plus-infinitive idiom into a simple narrative sentence with misit ("he sent") as the main verb, preceded by a comparative clause ("multo plures et nobiliores quam ante miserat").