Numbers 23:25

Summary

Balak speaks to Balaam after Balaam's oracle has failed to curse Israel, telling him that he should neither curse nor bless the people at all. The verse uses a doubled emphatic construction in Hebrew to stress total abstention from both actions.

Key words

• va-Yomer ("and he said", H0559) — qal narrative verb, the standard wayyiqtol form that advances the story's sequence of speech.
• gam ("neither/nor", H1571) — adverb repeated twice (lines 6 and 11), creating a "neither...nor" structure that frames both prohibitions symmetrically.
• qov ("", H6895) — qal infinitive absolute, paired with the following finite verb to intensify the negated action ("cursing you shall not curse").
• tiqqovennu ("you will curse it/him", H6895) — qal imperfect with 3ms pronominal suffix -nu ("him"), referring back to the people Balaam was to curse.
• barekh ("", H1288) — piel infinitive absolute, structurally mirroring qov but from the piel stem, paired with tevarakhennu to form the second half of the double prohibition.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built on two parallel infinitive-absolute + imperfect constructions, each preceded by gam ("neither/nor", H1571). The first pair is gam qov lo' tiqqovennu — literally "even/also cursing, you shall not curse him" — combining the qal infinitive qov (H6895) with the qal imperfect tiqqovennu (H6895) to emphasize the total negation of the cursing action. The second pair, gam barekh lo' tevarakhennu, repeats the same structure using the piel stem: the infinitive barekh (H1288) and imperfect tevarakhennu (H1288), meaning "even/also blessing, you shall not bless him."

This infinitive-absolute-plus-finite-verb pattern is a common Hebrew intensifying device that has no direct one-word equivalent in English or Spanish; it functions to underscore that the action described (cursing or blessing) is being categorically ruled out, not merely discouraged. The repeated gam...gam ("neither...nor") ties the two halves together, presenting cursing and blessing as an equally rejected pair from Balak's perspective — he no longer wants either extreme, only silence regarding Israel.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the doubled Hebrew intensification with participial and subjunctive forms (κατάραις καταράσῃ, εὐλογῶν... εὐλογήσῃς), preserving a similar doubling effect but using Greek grammatical categories (dative noun + subjunctive; participle + subjunctive) rather than the Hebrew infinitive-absolute pattern. The Vulgate simplifies this into two plain negative commands, Nec maledicas ei, nec benedicas ("neither may you curse him, nor may you bless"), without any equivalent to the Hebrew or Greek intensifying repetition. The RV1909 and SBLIBRE Spanish translations shift the sense further, framing the second clause as a concession ("since you will not curse him, at least do not bless him"), which reads Balak's words as a resigned compromise rather than the symmetrical double prohibition seen in the Hebrew and LXX.