Numbers 32:19

Summary

The speakers state that they will not receive an inheritance together with the other tribes on the far side of the Jordan, because their own inheritance has already come to them on the eastern side of the river. The verse gives the reason (introduced twice by ki) for staying east rather than crossing into Canaan proper.

Key words

• ninChal ("we will inherit", H5157) — qal imperfect, first person plural: an ongoing/future action, negated by lo' ("not", H3808), producing "we will not inherit."
• me'Ever ("[the] other side of", H5676G) — masculine singular construct noun, used twice in the verse to mark a boundary relative to the Jordan, each time governing a following genitive (la Yarden / ha Yarden).
• Va'ah ("it has come", H0935G) — qal perfect, third person feminine singular, agreeing with nachalaTenu ("our inheritance"); the perfect aspect marks the action as already completed at the time of speaking.
• nachalaTenu ("inheritance", H5159) + nu ("our") — feminine singular construct noun with a first-person plural possessive suffix, the grammatical subject of Va'ah.
• mizRachah ("east" + directional he, H4217H/H9011) — the directional suffix -ah indicates orientation "toward the east," specifying the geographic side of the Jordan already held.

What the text says

The verse is built as two parallel clauses, each introduced by the particle ki (H3588A), which here functions in a causal/explanatory sense ("for," "because") rather than as a simple conjunction. The first clause negates future inheritance "with them" ('iTam, H0854 + suffix) "from the other side of the Jordan and beyond" (me'Ever la Yarden va Hal'ah), using the imperfect ninChal to express an action not yet undertaken and now refused. The second ki-clause supplies the grounds for this refusal: the perfect verb Va'ah marks the inheritance (nachalaTenu) as an already-completed event — "our inheritance has come to us" — located "from the other side of the Jordan, eastward" (me'Ever ha Yarden mizRachah).

Notably, the same construct phrase me'Ever ... ha/la Yarden ("the other side of the Jordan") appears in both clauses but refers to opposite banks depending on the speaker's standpoint: in the first clause it points to the western side (where the other tribes will settle), and in the second to the eastern side (where the speakers already stand), disambiguated by the added mizRachah ("eastward") and by the contrast with va Hal'ah ("and beyond") in the first instance.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the double ki structure with καὶ οὐκέτι ("and no longer") for the first clause and ὅτι ("because") for the second, slightly softening the parallel causal structure of the Hebrew. The Vulgate compresses me'Ever la Yarden va Hal'ah ("from the other side of the Jordan and beyond") into the simpler trans Jordanem ("across the Jordan"), omitting the separate adverb Hal'ah ("beyond", H1973) as a distinct element.