Numbers 24:13

Summary

Balaam states a conditional refusal: even if Balak gave him a house full of silver and gold, he could not go beyond the command of Yehovah to act on his own initiative, whether for good or ill. He affirms that he will only speak what Yehovah speaks.

Key words

• yitten ("he will give", H5414G) — qal imperfect, third person, expressing a hypothetical future action introduced by 'im ("if", H0518A), setting up the conditional clause.
• 'ukhal ("I will be able", H3201) — qal imperfect, first person, negated by lo' ("not", H3808), stating Balaam's incapacity rather than mere unwillingness.
• la'avor ("to transgress", H5674D) — qal infinitive with prefixed preposition la, expressing purpose/result: the action he cannot do is "to cross over" the pi ("mouth of", H6310I) Yehovah, i.e., his spoken word.
• millibbi ("from my own heart", H3820A + suffix H9020) — construct noun with pronominal suffix and preposition mi ("from", H9006), specifying the source of any independent action as internal/personal.
• yedabber ("he will speak", H1696G) / 'adabber ("I will speak", H1696G) — both piel imperfect forms of the same root, creating a grammatical parallel between Yehovah's speech and Balaam's speech.

What the text says

The verse is built as a conditional sentence ('im + imperfect) followed by a negated main clause (lo' 'ukhal), then a relative clause introduced by 'asher ("that/which", H0834A) that closes the statement. The protasis names an extreme hypothetical: Balak giving melo' veito ("the fullness of his house", H4393 + H1004B), i.e., a house completely full, of kesef ve-zahav ("silver and gold", H3701G + H2091). The apodosis states Balaam's inability (lo' 'ukhal) to perform the infinitive action la'avor 'et-pi Yehovah ("to transgress the mouth of Yehovah") — the direct object marker 'et (H0853) marks pi Yehovah as the object being transgressed, a phrase that literally denotes Yehovah's mouth as metonym for his spoken command.

The purpose clause la'asot tovah 'o ra'ah millibbi ("to do good or bad from my own heart") specifies that the forbidden action is any independent act — good or bad — originating millibbi, from Balaam's own heart/will, using the construct noun lev ("heart", H3820A) with a first-person suffix. The final clause pairs two piel imperfect forms of the same root dabar ("to speak", H1696G): 'asher yedabber Yehovah ("that which Yehovah will speak") and 'oto 'adabber ("it I will speak"), with 'oto marking the object pronoun referring back to what Yehovah speaks. This root repetition creates a syntactic mirroring between the subject of speech (Yehovah) and the reporting agent (Balaam), which the Hebrew makes explicit through identical verb stems but different grammatical persons.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders pi Yehovah ("mouth of Yehovah") as to rēma kyriou ("the word of the Lord"), replacing the Hebrew's body-part metonym with an abstract noun for "word." The LXX also introduces ho theos ("the God") in the final clause where the Hebrew has Yehovah, and reorders the good/bad terms (ponēron ē kalon) compared to the Hebrew's tovah 'o ra'ah ("good or bad"). The Vulgate expands pi Yehovah to sermonem Domini Dei mei ("the word of the Lord my God"), adding a possessive not present in the Hebrew construct phrase.