Numbers 24:10

Summary

Numbers 24:10 narrates Balak's furious reaction to Balaam's third blessing of Israel. Balak's anger "burns," he claps his hands in a gesture of frustration, and he confronts Balaam, reminding him that he was summoned to curse Israel but has instead blessed them three times.

Key words

• yichar ("it burned", H2734) — qal narrative verb describing anger as something that "burns"; the idiom charah af ("anger burned") is the standard Hebrew expression for kindled wrath.
• yispoq ("he clapped", H5606A) — qal narrative verb for the physical gesture of striking the hands together, paired with kappai ("my/his hands", H3709G), a feminine dual noun in construct form.
• qov ("to curse", H6895) — qal infinitive following the preposition la ("to", H9005), expressing purpose: "in order to curse."
• berakhta varekh ("you have blessed, actually bless", H1288 x2) — the finite perfect verb berakhta is doubled with its own infinitive varekh in the same root (piel stem), an emphatic construction underlining the completeness or intensity of the blessing action.
• shalosh pe'amim ("three times", H7969 + H6471) — cardinal number plus plural noun marking repetition, closing the sentence with a count of the occurrences.

What the text says

The verse opens with two narrative-chain verbs (va-yichar, va-yispoq) that move the story forward: first Balak's anger "burns" (af, "anger", is grammatically the subject of yichar, giving the literal sense "the anger of Balak burned"), then he performs the physical act of clapping his hands (kappai, dual construct with 1st-person suffix in this citation, though contextually referring to his own hands). A third narrative verb, va-yomer, introduces his direct speech.

Within the speech, the infinitive qov ("to curse") expresses the original purpose for which Balaam was summoned, contrasted with what actually happened. The verb qarati ("I summoned", H7121G, perfect) states this past action, followed by the interjection hinneh ("here!", H2009), which draws attention to the contrasting present reality. The core of the reproach is the doubled root construction berakhta varekh — a finite perfect verb followed by an infinitive of the same root — a grammatical pattern in Biblical Hebrew that intensifies or confirms the verbal action, here emphasizing that the blessing was not partial or accidental but fully realized. The closing phrase zeh shalosh pe'amim ("this three times") quantifies the repetition, referring to the three oracles Balaam has pronounced.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the doubled Hebrew construction berakhta varekh as εὐλογῶν εὐλόγησας ("blessing, you have blessed"), using a participle plus finite verb rather than infinitive plus finite verb — a comparable but not identical emphatic pattern. The Vulgate simplifies this to a single verb, benedixisti ("you have blessed"), without reduplication, losing the intensifying construction present in both Hebrew and Greek. The Vulgate also renders shalosh pe'amim ("three times") as tertio ("for the third time"), a slightly different numerical framing than "three times" found in the Hebrew and Greek.