Numbers 22:40

Summary

The verse reports that Balak sacrificed cattle and sheep, and then sent (something, unstated) to Balaam and to the leaders who were with him. The Hebrew text narrates two consecutive actions using the classic biblical narrative chain: sacrifice, then sending.

Key words

• yizbach ("he sacrificed", H2076) — qal narrative form (wayyiqtol), marking the first sequential action in the story.
• baqar ("cattle", H1241) — singular collective noun, paired with tzon.
• tzon ("sheep", H6629) — singular collective noun; together with baqar it forms a merism covering livestock in general.
• yeshallach ("he sent", H7971) — piel narrative form (wayyiqtol); the piel stem here carries the ordinary sense "to send" rather than a strongly intensive nuance, but the form is grammatically piel, not qal.
• asher ("who/that", H0834A) — relative particle introducing the clause asher itto ("who were with him"), qualifying "the leaders."

What the text says

The verse is built from two clauses linked by the narrative vav (H9001), the standard device that chains successive events in Biblical Hebrew narrative: "and he sacrificed... and he sent..." The subject of both verbs is Balak (Balaq, H1111), named explicitly only after the first verb, with the second verb continuing the same subject implicitly.

A notable grammatical feature is that the verb yeshallach ("he sent", H7971) has no stated direct object in the Hebrew. The text says only that Balak "sent to Balaam and to the leaders who were with him" — it does not specify what was sent. The object must be inferred from context (portions of the sacrificed meat), but the Hebrew clause itself is elliptical, naming only the recipients (le-Bil'am, "to Balaam," and la-sarim asher itto, "to the leaders who were with him") introduced by the preposition le (H9005).

The phrase asher itto ("who were with him") is a relative clause using asher (H0834A) plus the preposition itto ("with him," H0854 + suffix), identifying the leaders as Balak's companions rather than an independent group.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew leaves the object of "he sent" unstated. The Vulgate resolves this ambiguity by adding munera ("gifts"), and the BSB/SBLIBRE supply "portions" of meat, making explicit what the Hebrew only implies through context. The LXX also has ἀπέστειλεν ("he sent") without an explicit object, matching the Hebrew's ellipsis more closely than the Vulgate does. Additionally, the LXX reverses the order of the animals, listing πρόβατα ("sheep") before μόσχους ("calves/cattle"), whereas the Hebrew names baqar ("cattle") before tzon ("sheep").