Numbers 25:3

Summary

The verse reports that Israel bound itself to the cult of Baal Peor, and that this provoked Yehovah's anger against the people. The two clauses are linked by consecutive narrative verbs, presenting cause and immediate consequence.

Key words

• yitzamed ("it joined itself", H6775) — niphal form of the root meaning "to yoke, bind together"; the niphal gives a passive/reflexive sense, so the subject Israel is not simply "joining" but being "yoked" or "bound" to something, as an animal is yoked.
• Yisra'El ("Israel", H3478) — appears twice, as the subject of the first clause and the object of the preposition in the second, framing the verse.
• Ba'al Pe'or ("Baal", H1187 / "Peor", H1187) — construct-like proper name combination, "Baal of Peor," naming the specific cult/deity involved.
• yichar ("it burned", H2734) — qal verb, simple active narrative form, describing anger as something that "burns" or "grows hot."
• 'af ("anger/nose of", H0639G) — masculine singular noun in construct state, literally "nose of," here governing "Yehovah," so the phrase reads "the nose/anger of Yehovah burned."

What the text says

The verse is built as two parallel narrative clauses, each opened by the vav-consecutive that chains events sequentially ("and then... and then..."). The first clause has yitzamed in the niphal, a passive/reflexive verbal form that portrays Israel not as an active agent choosing to join a cult independently, but as becoming yoked or bound to Baal Peor — the verb's root elsewhere describes animals yoked together, so the image is of attachment or binding rather than mere participation. The second clause uses the idiom yichar 'af ("the nose/anger burned"), a common Hebrew expression for kindled anger, with 'af in construct governing the divine name YHWH. The structure creates a tight cause-effect chiasm: Israel is bound to Peor; Yehovah's anger is kindled against Israel — the same people who yoked themselves to the foreign cult now stand under divine anger.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the first verb as etelesthē ("was consummated" or "was initiated," from teleō), and the Vulgate follows with Initiatusque est ("and [Israel] was initiated"). Both Greek and Latin shift the Hebrew image of "yoking/binding" (tsamad) toward a vocabulary of ritual initiation or consummation, which is a different metaphorical framing than the Hebrew niphal of "to yoke." For the second clause, the LXX phrases it as "the LORD was angered with wrath" (ōrgisthē thymō), a verb-plus-noun construction, whereas the Hebrew places 'af ("nose/anger") as the grammatical subject that itself "burns" — a difference in how the anger is grammatically located, as an action of the LORD in Greek versus a bodily/emotional entity that ignites in Hebrew.