Numbers 5:23

Summary

The verse describes a two-step ritual action: the priest writes a set of curses on a scroll, then wipes or dissolves that writing into bitter water. The Hebrew presents these as sequential actions joined by narrative structure.

Key words

• kha.tav ("he will write", H3789) — qal sequential perfect; continues the narrative chain of actions the priest performs.
• 'a.Lot ("curses", H0423) — feminine plural noun, the object being written; definite via the article ha. (H9009) and specified by the demonstrative 'E.leh ("these", H0428).
• ko.Hen ("priest", H3548) — masculine singular noun, the subject performing both verbs in this verse.
• ma.Chah ("he will wipe [them] off", H4229A) — qal sequential perfect, parallel in form to kha.tav, marking the second action in the sequence.
• ma.Rim ("bitter [things]", H4751) — masculine plural adjective modifying mei ("waters of", H4325G), describing the water into which the writing is wiped.

What the text says

The verse is built on two sequential perfect verbs, kha.tav ("he will write") and ma.Chah ("he will wipe [them] off"), both governed by the single subject ko.Hen ("the priest"). This grammatical pairing presents the writing and the wiping as two linked stages of one continuous procedure, with the narrative vav (ve- / u-) connecting each clause to what precedes and follows in the surrounding text.

The object of the first verb is marked by the direct object marker 'et- (H0853, untranslated) followed by ha.'a.Lot ha.'E.leh — "the curses, these" — a construction using both the definite article and a demonstrative to specify precisely which curses are meant (those already stated earlier in the passage). The scroll is denoted by Se.fer ("scroll", H5612H) with the preposition-article combination ba. ("in the").

The second clause has ma.Chah ("he will wipe [them] off") taking no explicit direct object in the Hebrew — the pronoun "them" in the English gloss is supplied for clarity, since the verb's object is understood from context as the written curses. This action is directed 'el- ("into", H0413) mei ha.ma.Rim — "the waters of the bitter [things]," a construct phrase where ma.Rim ("bitter", H4751) functions adjectivally on the plural noun mei ("waters of").

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the Hebrew ma.Chah ("he will wipe off") with ἐξαλείψει ("he will wipe away/erase"), consistent with the Hebrew sense. However, where the Hebrew has mei ha.ma.Rim ("waters of the bitter [things]"), the LXX reads τὸ ὕδωρ τοῦ ἐλεγμοῦ τοῦ ἐπικαταρωμένου ("the water of conviction/rebuke, of cursing"), introducing a different descriptive phrase for the water than the Hebrew's simple adjective "bitter." The Vulgate's aquis amarissimis ("most bitter waters") follows the Hebrew's sense of bitterness more closely, and adds the clause in quas maledicta congessit ("into which he gathered the curses"), an explanatory phrase not present in the Hebrew text as given.