Numbers 32:13
וַיִּֽחַר־אַף יְהוָה בְּיִשְׂרָאֵל וַיְנִעֵם בַּמִּדְבָּר אַרְבָּעִים שָׁנָה עַד־תֹּם כָּל־הַדּוֹר הָעֹשֶׂה הָרַע בְּעֵינֵי יְהוָֽה׃
✦ Hebrew interlinear
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✦ The same verse in five languages
וַיִּֽחַר־אַ֤ף יְהוָה֙ בְּיִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל וַיְנִעֵם֙ בַּמִּדְבָּ֔ר אַרְבָּעִ֖ים שָׁנָ֑ה עַד־תֹּם֙ כָּל־הַדּ֔וֹר הָעֹשֶׂ֥ה הָרַ֖ע בְּעֵינֵ֥י יְהוָֽה׃
καὶ ὠργίσθη θυμῷ κύριος ἐπὶ τὸν ᾿Ισραήλ, καὶ κατερόμβευσεν αὐτοὺς ἐν τῆ ἐρήμῳ τεσσεράκοντα ἔτη, ἕως ἐξανηλώθη πᾶσα ἡ γενεά, οἱ ποιοῦντες τὰ πονηρὰ ἔναντι κυρίου.
Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0
Latin (Vulgate)
Iratusque Dominus adversum Israël, circumduxit eum per desertum quadraginta annis, donec consumeretur universa generatio, quæ fecerat malum in conspectu ejus.
Yehová se enfureció tanto contra Israel que los hizo dar vueltas por el desierto durante cuarenta años, hasta que murió toda la generación que se había portado mal ante los ojos de Yehová.
Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)
Y el furor de Jehová se encendió en Israel, é hízolos andar errantes cuarenta años por el desierto, hasta que fué acabada toda aquella generación, que había hecho mal delante de Jehová.
The anger of the LORD burned against Israel, and He made them wander in the wilderness forty years, until the whole generation who had done evil in His sight was gone.
✦ What the text says
Summary
The verse describes Yehovah's anger burning against Israel, resulting in a forty-year period of wandering in the wilderness. This continued until the entire generation that had committed evil in Yehovah's sight had died out.
Key words
- yichar ("it burned", H2734) — qal narrative verb; the idiom "the nose/anger burned" expresses the onset of divine wrath as a sequential narrative event.
- 'af ("[the] anger of", H0639G) — masculine singular construct; literally "nose," here functioning as "anger," bound to Yehovah in a construct chain meaning "the anger of Yehovah."
- yeni'em ("he made wander", H5128) — hiphil (causative) narrative verb with 3rd person masculine plural suffix "them" (H9038); the causative stem indicates Yehovah is the agent causing Israel's wandering, not a passive experience.
- tom ("was finished", H8552) — qal infinitive construct after the preposition 'ad ("until", H5704), marking the temporal endpoint of the forty-year period.
- 'oseh ("had done", H6213A) — qal active participle, masculine singular, describing the generation as ongoing "doers" of evil rather than using a simple past-tense verb.
What the text says
The verse opens with two narrative-chained verbs (va-yichar, va-yeni'em) that report sequential actions: first Yehovah's anger ignites, then he causes the wandering. The construct phrase 'af Yehovah ("anger of Yehovah") places the divine name in a possessive relationship with "anger," a common Hebrew idiom for describing wrath as kindled or burning.
The causative hiphil form yeni'em is significant: it explicitly marks Yehovah as the one making the people wander, rather than describing the wandering as a self-directed action by Israel. The forty years are marked with the cardinal number 'arba'im ("forty", H0705) and shanah ("year", H8141), a straightforward temporal expression.
The clause introduced by 'ad tom ("until was finished") uses an infinitive construct to mark the terminus of the wandering period — the completion or "finishing" of the entire generation (kol ha-dor, "all the generation"). This generation is further described using a participle, ha-'oseh ha-ra' ("the one doing the evil"), which in Hebrew grammar frames their evildoing as a characteristic or ongoing state rather than a single past event, modifying "the generation" as a substantive description. The phrase be-'einei Yehovah ("in the eyes of Yehovah", using the dual construct noun 'einei) is an idiom meaning "in Yehovah's sight/judgment."
This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.