Numbers 31:16

Summary

The verse states that the group referred to by the pronoun "they" (feminine) caused the Israelites, through Balaam's counsel, to commit unfaithfulness against Yehovah in the matter of Peor, and that as a result a plague came upon Yehovah's congregation.

Key words

• hen ("there!", H2005) + hennah ("they", H2007) — a doubled construction: the interjection hen combined with the feminine plural pronoun hennah creates emphatic pointing back to a previously mentioned referent, functioning almost like "Look — it was they who...".
• devar ("word/matter of", H1697) — this construct-state noun appears twice in the verse (bidvar Bil'am, "by the word of Balaam"; al-devar Pe'or, "on the matter of Peor"), linking Balaam's speech to the event at Peor through repetition of the same root.
• limsor ("to offer/commit", H4560) — an infinitive construct with prefixed lamed, expressing purpose or result ("in order to commit / resulting in committing").
• ma'al ("unfaithfulness", H4604) — a masculine singular noun denoting treacherous or unfaithful action; here it is the direct object of the infinitive limsor, so the phrase reads literally "to commit unfaithfulness against Yehovah."
• vatehi ("and it was", H1961) — the verb hayah in narrative (vav-consecutive) form, marking the transition from cause (Balaam's counsel) to consequence (the plague) within the story sequence.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence opens with the emphatic hen hennah ("Behold, they..."), a construction that assumes the reader already knows who "they" are from the surrounding narrative; the verse itself does not name the referent explicitly. The predicate hayu livnei Yisra'el ("were to the sons of Israel") is followed by bidvar Bil'am ("by the word of Balaam"), attributing the action's origin to Balaam's speech.

The core action is expressed through the infinitive construct limsor ma'al baYHWH: literally "to commit unfaithfulness against Yehovah." This is not a finite verb with a subject-object clause in the way English or Latin might render it, but an infinitive of purpose/result attached to the preceding clause — the syntax presents the unfaithfulness as the outcome or aim of what "they" did through Balaam's word. The phrase al-devar Pe'or ("concerning the matter of Peor") then locates this unfaithfulness in a specific incident, reusing the noun devar from earlier in the verse.

The final clause shifts to narrative sequence with vatehi hammagefah ba'adat YHWH ("and the plague was in the congregation of Yehovah"), using the vav-consecutive form to present the plague as following directly from what preceded.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the opening pronoun explicitly as αὗται ("these women"), supplying a subject the Hebrew leaves implicit in hen hennah. Where the Hebrew has a single infinitive-noun pairing (limsor ma'al, "to commit unfaithfulness"), the LXX expands this into two infinitives, "to make apostatize and to disregard" (τοῦ ἀποστῆσαι καὶ ὑπεριδεῖν), splitting one Hebrew concept into two Greek verbal ideas. The Vulgate diverges further, introducing "deceperunt" ("they deceived") as the main verb and treating unfaithfulness (praevaricari) as a separate causative clause ("et praevaricari vos fecerunt," "and made you transgress"), restructuring the single Hebrew infinitive phrase into two distinct clauses with a different logical relationship between deception and unfaithfulness.