Numbers 35:14

Summary

The verse specifies the distribution of six cities of refuge: three are to be given on one side of the Jordan, and three in the land of Canaan. The final clause states that these cities will function as places of refuge.

Key words

• she.Losh ("three", H7969) — construct form of the cardinal number, appearing twice, each time linking to he.'Arim ("the cities") to specify how many cities are assigned to each region.
• ti.te.Nu ("you will give", H5414G) — qal imperfect, second person masculine plural, repeated in both halves of the verse; it expresses a future/ongoing obligation directed at the addressees (plural "you") to allocate the cities.
• 'E.ver ("the other side", H5676H) — construct noun indicating location relative to the Jordan, here marking the region "across" or "beyond" the river.
• 'a.Rei ("cities of", H5892B) — construct plural of "cities," here governing mik.Lat ("refuge") to form the technical phrase "cities of refuge."
• tih.Yei.nah ("they will be", H1961) — qal imperfect, third person feminine plural, agreeing with the feminine plural noun "cities," closing the verse with a statement of the cities' designated function.

What the text says

The verse is built as two parallel clauses joined by ve ("and", H9002), each following the same structure: object marker 'et (H0853) + number she.Losh ("three") + definite article + "cities" + verb ti.te.Nu ("you will give"). This repetition creates a balanced syntactic pattern that mirrors the geographic division being described — three cities me.'Ever la.Yarden ("from the other side of the Jordan") and three cities be.'Eretz Kena'an ("in the land of Canaan"). The construct form she.Losh ties the number directly to "the cities" in each clause, marking a specific, already-defined set of three rather than an indefinite quantity.

The final clause, 'Arei miklat tihyeinah ("cities of refuge they will be"), uses a construct chain ('Arei miklat) followed by the verb tihyeinah, which agrees in gender and number with the feminine plural "cities" mentioned earlier. This construction functions as a summary statement, naming the collective purpose of all six cities after their geographic distribution has been laid out. The verb form ti.te.Nu appears identically in both clauses, reinforcing the parallel command structure without variation in verb stem or aspect.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew text uses the verb ti.te.Nu ("you will give") in both clauses, addressed to a plural "you," while the BSB renders this as an imperative ("Select..."), shifting the grammatical mood from the underlying Hebrew imperfect. The Vulgate (tres erunt, "three shall be") and SBLIBRE render the first clause without an explicit verb of giving, using a form of "to be" instead, which shifts the emphasis from an act of allocation to a statement of location. The LXX (δώσετε, "you will give") preserves the same verb and grammatical person as the Hebrew ti.te.Nu.