Numbers 34:6

Summary

The verse defines Israel's western boundary by naming the Mediterranean itself as the border marker. It opens and closes with the same phrase, "border of the west," framing a middle clause that identifies this border as "the Great Sea."

Key words

• gevul ("border of", H1366G) — appears three times as a masculine singular noun, twice in construct form linking to yam, structuring the verse as an envelope (border...border).
• yam ("west" / "[the] sea", H3220H / H3220G) — the same Hebrew word is tagged with two different Strong numbers depending on whether it functions as "sea" (the geographic body of water) or "west" (the cardinal direction), since the Mediterranean lies west of the land in view.
• ha-Yam ha-Gadol ("the Great Sea", H3220G + H1419J) — the noun yam here takes the definite article and is modified by the adjective gadol ("great"), naming the specific sea that constitutes the boundary.
• zeh ("this", H2088) — a demonstrative particle pointing back to the Great Sea just named, resuming the subject before the final declaration.
• hayah / yihyeh ("it will be", H1961) — the same root appears twice in different forms: a sequential perfect (hayah) introducing the border definition, and an imperfect (yihyeh) closing the verse, giving the statement two verbal anchors around the central identification.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built as a ring structure: gevul yam ("border of west") opens the verse, and gevul yam closes it, with the identification of that border — ha-yam ha-gadol, "the Great Sea" — placed in the center. The verb hayah ("it will be") introduces this identification as a completed statement in sequence with the preceding verses of the chapter, while yihyeh ("it will be"), an imperfect form of the same root, restates the conclusion at the end. This repetition with two different verbal aspects of hayah creates emphasis: the border is stated, defined, and restated using the demonstrative zeh ("this") to point back to what was just named.

The double use of yam — once glossed "west" and once glossed "sea" — reflects that the single Hebrew word carries both senses simultaneously in this geographic context, since the sea in question lies to the west.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the middle clause with a verb, ὁριεῖ ("will mark the boundary"), making "the Great Sea" the grammatical subject of an action, whereas the Hebrew uses a nominal identification without a comparable active verb for the sea itself. The Vulgate restructures the verse further, introducing incipiet ("will begin") and claudetur ("will be closed"), verbs describing the border's beginning and closing point that do not correspond directly to the Hebrew's hayah/yihyeh repetition.