Numbers 33:40

Summary

The verse reports that the Canaanite king of Arad, who resided in the Negev region within the land of Canaan, received a report about the arrival of the Israelites. It functions as a narrative note situating this king geographically before an event tied to Israel's movement.

Key words

• va-yishma' ("and he heard", H8085G) — narrative vav + qal verb; marks this as a sequential story event, "and then he heard."
• ha-kena'ani ("the Canaanite", H3669A) — gentilic noun with definite article, identifying the king by ethnic/national group.
• melekh ("king of", H4428G) — masculine singular construct noun, linking directly to 'Arad, the place he rules.
• hu yoshev ("he [was] dwelling", H1931 + H3427) — independent pronoun hu followed by a qal participle, emphasizing that he himself was the one residing in that location; the participle expresses an ongoing state ("dwelling") rather than a completed action.
• be-vo' ("when came", H0935G) — preposition be + infinitive, forming a temporal clause: "in/at the coming of," setting the moment when the report was heard.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence opens with the narrative vav on yishma' ("and he heard"), placing this notice in sequence with prior events. The subject — ha-kena'ani melekh 'Arad, "the Canaanite, king of Arad" — is introduced through a construct chain: melekh ("king of") governs 'Arad directly, without an intervening preposition, which is typical construct-state grammar in Biblical Hebrew.

A second clause, introduced by ve-hu ("and he"), uses the independent pronoun before the participle yoshev ("dwelling"). This construction highlights the subject explicitly, a stylistic feature that adds emphasis absent in translations that render it simply as "who lived." The participle itself denotes a durative or habitual state, describing where this king resided — ba-Negev, "in the Negev," within be-'eretz kena'an, "in the land of Canaan" — rather than a single past action.

The final clause uses the infinitive construct be-vo' ("in the coming of") governed by the preposition be, forming a temporal expression: "when the sons of Israel came." This infinitive construction is common in Biblical Hebrew for expressing "when X happened," without a finite verb form for the subordinate action.

Differences between versions

The LXX (Swete) renders be-vo' ("when...came") with a finite verb, eiseporeuonto ("were entering"), using imperfect tense to suggest an ongoing or repeated action, rather than the single infinitival event implied in the Hebrew construction. The Vulgate parallels this with venisse ("to have come"), a completed infinitive, closer structurally to the Hebrew infinitive form. Modern translations (BSB, SBLIBRE) render this clause as "were coming" or "se acercaban" ("were approaching"), reflecting interpretive choices about whether the action was ongoing or a single reported event, though the underlying Hebrew infinitive itself does not specify aspect explicitly.