Numbers 22:31

Summary

Yehovah opens Balaam's eyes so that he perceives what had been hidden from him: the angel of Yehovah standing in the road with a drawn sword. Balaam's reaction is immediate and physical — he lowers his head and prostrates himself to the ground.

Key words

• yGal ("he uncovered", H1540I) — piel stem, giving intensive force to "uncover/reveal"; the narrative vav marks it as the next event in the sequence, with Yehovah as subject.
• 'einei ("eyes of", H5869A) — dual construct noun, grammatically tying "eyes" to "Balaam" as the object uncovered; the dual form reflects the paired body part.
• nitzav ("standing", H5324) — niphal participle, describing the angel's posture as a state resulting from an action, often rendered as a passive/reflexive nuance ("stationed" or "positioned").
• sheluphah ("drawn", H8025) — qal passive participle, feminine to agree with charbo ("his sword"), describing the sword's condition rather than an ongoing action.
• yishtachu ("he bowed down", H7812) — hishtaphel stem (a form used for the act of prostration), continuing the narrative chain begun by yiqqod ("he bowed low", H6915).

What the text says

The verse opens with a narrative vav-chain: vaYgal → vaYar' → vaYiqqod → vaYishtachu, four consecutive verbs marking sequential action. Yehovah is the grammatical subject of the first verb, yGal ("he uncovered", H1540I), acting on 'einei Vil'am ("the eyes of Balaam", H5869A + proper name) — the direct object marker 'et (H0853) signals this without adding independent meaning. The effect of this uncovering is stated in the next clause: Balaam "sees" (yar', H7200G) the angel, introduced again with 'et.

The angel's description uses two participial constructions: nitzav ("standing", H5324), a niphal participle marking a resultant state, and sheluphah ("drawn", H8025), a qal passive participle agreeing in gender with charbo ("his sword", H2719 + suffix H9023). Both participles describe static conditions observed by Balaam rather than actions in progress — the sword is not being drawn at that moment but exists already drawn.

Balaam's response is expressed through two verbs in sequence, yiqqod ("he bowed low", H6915) and yishtachu ("he bowed down", H7812), directed le'apayv ("to his face", H0639I), a dual construct noun referring to the two "faces" or nostrils, idiomatically indicating a prostration with the face toward the ground.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders Yehovah (H3068G) as ho theos ("God") rather than using the divine name or kyrios, differing from the Hebrew's explicit Yehovah. The Vulgate instead uses Dominus ("Lord"), matching the second occurrence of Yehovah in the Hebrew (line 11) with angelum ... Domini elsewhere in context. The Vulgate also adds pronus in terram ("prone on the ground"), an explanatory addition not present in the Hebrew's le'apayv ("to his face").