Numbers 23:21

Summary

The verse states that Yehovah has not observed 'aven ("disaster", H0205) in Jacob nor 'amal ("trouble", H5999) in Israel, because Yehovah their God is present with them, accompanied by the teru'ah ("shout", H8643) of a king among them.

Key words

• hibbit ("he has looked at", H5027) — Hiphil (causative) perfect, describing a completed act of intently looking/perceiving, paired with lo' ("not", H3808).
• 'aven ("disaster", H0205) — masculine singular noun, the object of the looking; in Hebrew this term ranges semantically from "trouble/misfortune" to "iniquity" depending on context.
• ra'ah ("he has seen", H7200G) — Qal perfect, a simpler (non-causative) verb than hibbit, forming the second half of the parallel structure.
• 'elohav ("his God", H0430G) — grammatically masculine plural construct form of 'elohim, but functioning with a singular sense ("God of him") via the attached suffix -o (H9023).
• teru'at melekh ("shout of a king", H8643 + H4428G) — a construct chain: teru'at ("shout of") governs melekh ("a king"), producing "a king's shout" rather than two separate nouns.

What the text says

The verse is built on two parallel negated clauses: lo' hibbit 'aven be-Ya'aqov ("he has not looked-at disaster in Jacob") and ve-lo' ra'ah 'amal be-Yisra'el ("and he has not seen trouble in Israel"). Both verbs are perfect tense, indicating completed action from the speaker's vantage point, and both nouns ('aven, 'amal) sit in a prepositional phrase with be- ("in") attached to the proper names Jacob and Israel — the same nation named twice under its two identities.

The second half of the verse shifts from negation to affirmation: YHWH 'elohav 'immo ("Yehovah his God [is] with him") uses no explicit verb — the presence is stated through the preposition 'im ("with", H5973A) plus the third-person suffix -o ("him", H9033), a common Hebrew construction for "being with" someone without a copula. The final clause, u-teru'at melekh bo ("and a king's shout [is] in him"), repeats this same suffixed-preposition pattern (b- + -o), tying the "shout" to the same referent (Jacob/Israel) as the surrounding clauses.

Differences between versions

The LXX shifts tense and vocabulary: instead of "he has not looked/seen," it reads οὐκ ἔσται μόχθος ("there will not be labor") — a future, impersonal construction rather than a perfect verb with Yehovah as subject. It renders 'aven as μόχθος ("labor/hardship") and 'amal as πόνος ("toil/pain"), and translates teru'at melekh as τὰ ἔνδοξα ἀρχόντων ("the glorious things of rulers"), diverging from the Hebrew "shout of a king."

The Vulgate translates 'aven as "idolum" ("idol") and 'amal as "simulacrum" ("image/likeness"), producing "Non est idolum in Jacob, nec videtur simulacrum in Israël" — a reading oriented toward idolatry rather than the Hebrew's sense of disaster or trouble.