Deuteronomy2:24–37

Where the English smooths the original

• סְּע֗וּ BSB's calm “set out” flattens nāsaʻ (H5265), which properly means to pull up the tent-pegs — the verb of a nomadic camp striking its tents. The command is to break camp, not merely to depart.
• נַ֣חַל “Valley” renders naḥal (H5158) — not a placid valley but a winter-torrent ravine, the dry wadi that floods in the rains. The Arnon gorge is a chasm, and the Hebrew word carries that violence the English loses.
• נָתַ֣תִּי The English “I have delivered” is right to be a perfect: nāṯattî (H5414) is a completed “I have given” spoken before a sword is drawn. The grant is past tense; the conquest is still future. Gift precedes effort.
• וְהִתְגָּ֥ר “Engage” tames a vivid Hitpael, hiṯgār (H1624), from a root meaning to grate or chafe — to provoke / stir oneself up into strife. Israel is told to pick the fight, not passively to be drawn into one.

Where the English smooths the original

• פַּחְדְּךָ֙ BSB pairs “dread and fear,” but the two Hebrew nouns are not synonyms stacked for force. paḥad (H6343) is sudden, paralyzing terror — the panic that drops on a man; yirʼâh (H3374) is the more settled fear / awe. The line moves from shock to abiding dread.
• פְּנֵי֙ “upon all the nations” drops a Hebrew image: literally upon the pənê (face) of all the peoples (H6440). The terror is set on their very faces — the place where fear shows.
• וְרָגְז֥וּ “tremble” renders rāḡəzū (H7264), to quiver with violent emotion; with the following ḥālū it is a hendiadys for body-shaking dread, the same verb-cluster Exodus 15 uses of Canaan melting.
• וְחָל֖וּ “in anguish” hides a startling verb: ḥālū (H2342), to twist or writhe, the word for a woman's labor-pangs (Keil: “to writhe with pain”; cf. Isaiah 13:8). The nations don't merely fret — they convulse as if in childbirth.

Where the English smooths the original

• וָאֶשְׁלַ֤ח The verb is a plain waw-consecutive narrative wā’ešlaḥ, “and I sent” (H7971). BSB's “So… I sent” supplies a causal “so” the Hebrew leaves implicit — Moses simply lays one act beside the command of v. 24, and the reader feels the tension between them.
• דִּבְרֵ֥י “an offer of peace” renders the construct phrase diḇrê šālôm — literally words of peace (H1697 + H7965). Not a vague gesture but peace-words, a formal embassy. The same root dāḇār is the ordinary word for a matter or thing; here it is speech sent ahead of armies.
• מִמִּדְבַּ֣ר “from the Wilderness of Kedemoth” — the place-name Qədêmôwṯ (H6932) means “eastern parts” (Barnes). The embassy of peace goes out from the desert's edge, the very frontier of the doomed land.

Where the English smooths the original

• אֶעְבְּרָ֣ה ’e‘bərāh (H5674) is cohortative — “let me cross over,” a courteous request, not a demand. BSB's “Let us pass through” catches the politeness; the singular Hebrew speaks for the whole people in one voice.
• בַּדֶּ֥רֶךְ The Hebrew literally doubles the word: badderek badderek — “on the road, on the road” (H1870, twice; Pulpit: “by the way, by the way”). The repetition means “on the road and only the road, always keeping to it.” BSB's “the main road” renders the sense but mutes the insistent doubling.
• אָס֖וּר “turn” is ’āsūr (H5493), to turn aside — the same idiom (neither right nor left) that Deuteronomy uses for unswerving obedience to the law. Israel's road-discipline through Sihon's land mirrors the heart-discipline demanded of Joshua.

Where the English smooths the original

• תַּשְׁבִּרֵ֙נִי֙ The verb tašbirênî (H7666) is built from šeḇer, grain — it specifically means to sell / supply provisions, not generic commerce. BSB's “sell us food” is right, but the word itself already carries “deal out grain to me.”
• רַ֖ק “Only” renders the limiting particle raq (H7535), “merely, nothing but.” It scales the whole request down to its smallest possible footprint — a single concession, leave to walk the road. The same word will return in v. 35 to limit the spoil.
• בְרַגְלָֽי “on foot” is literally on my feet (ḇəraḡlāy, H7272). Poole and Benson catch the significance: a footed host, with no cavalry, could do far less damage in transit than a mounted army — the phrase is a reassurance built into the request.

Where the English smooths the original

• עָֽשׂוּ־ “did for us” — the verb ‘āśū (H6213) is a general “did,” and the precedent it appeals to is delicate: Edom and Moab were not warm hosts. Poole and Benson note the favor is ascribed pointedly to the people, not their kings, and amounted to selling provisions and not blocking passage — a low bar held up as the model for Sihon.
• אֶֽעֱבֹר֙ “we cross” is the leitwort of the whole unit, ‘āḇar (H5674), to cross over — the verb sounded in the command (v. 24), the request (v. 27), the plea (v. 28), and here the goal. The destiny of Israel is one long crossing-over toward the Jordan.
• נֹתֵ֥ן “is giving” is a participle, nōṯên (H5414) — present, ongoing giving. The land beyond Jordan is not merely promised once; God is, right now, in the act of giving it. The same verb that handed over Sihon in v. 24 is handing over the whole inheritance.

Where the English smooths the original

• אָבָ֗ה “would not” renders ’āḇāh (H14), to be willing / consent — literally “was not willing.” The refusal is named as Sihon's own act of will before the divine hardening is mentioned, holding human responsibility and divine sovereignty in one breath.
• הִקְשָׁה֩ “stubborn” is hiqšāh (H7185), Hifil of qāšâ, to make hard / dense / stiff — the same verb-family used of Pharaoh. As Ellicott observes, “to harden a man's spirit is not necessarily a moral process any more than the hardening of steel” — the metal is made hard for the use it is put to.
• וְאִמֵּץ֙ “obstinate” hides a remarkable word: ’immêṣ (H553), Piel of ’āmaṣ, to make strong / firm / courageous. Ellicott notes it is the very verb of Joshua 1:6, “be of a good courage.” The same God-given strength makes a Joshua brave and a Sihon obstinate — the gift is identical; the use damns or saves.
• תִּתּ֥וֹ “He might deliver him” is tittô (H5414, infinitive with suffix) — the recurring nāṯan, “give.” Sihon's hardening is purposeful: God firms the heart in order to give the king into Israel's hand, the completed gift of v. 24 now working itself out in history.

Where the English smooths the original

• הַֽחִלֹּ֙תִי֙ “I have begun” is haḥillōṯî (H2490, Hifil perfect) — God says “I have begun to give,” echoing His own promise in v. 25 (“This day I begin”) and answering Israel's marching order in v. 24 (“begin to take possession”). The verb châlal stitches God's act and Israel's task into one beginning.
• רָ֔שׁ The bare imperative rāš (H3423), “take possession,” then the infinitive lārešeṯ, “to possess” — the same root twice, a figura etymologica that BSB unfolds as “conquer and possess.” The doubling presses urgency: begin now to seize what is already given.
• לְפָנֶ֔יךָ “over to you” is literally before your face (ləp̄āneḵā, H6440). The land is set out in front of Israel — laid open, the gift visible and within reach. The same pānîm that the nations' terror sat upon (v. 25) is now Israel's vantage over the spoil.

Where the English smooths the original

• וַיֵּצֵא֩ “came out” is wayyêṣê (H3318), to go forth — Sihon, not Israel, opens the battle by marching out from Heshbon. The narrative is careful: the offer of peace was real, and the aggressor is the one who refused it. Israel's commanded provocation (v. 24) and Sihon's actual sortie meet here.
• לִקְרָאתֵ֜נוּ “against us” renders liqrāṯênū (H7122), to encounter / meet — a verb that can mean a friendly meeting or, as here, a hostile one. Sihon comes out to meet Israel, but in arms; the word that might have crowned a welcome instead names a collision.
• יָֽהְצָה “at Jahaz” — the place-name Yahaṣ (H3096; Pulpit derives it from a root, “downtrodden”). The single named battlefield of the whole campaign, later a Reubenite and Levitical town (Joshua 13:18; 21:36) — sacred ground won on the field where the Amorite chose war over peace.

Where the English smooths the original

• וַֽיִּתְּנֵ֛הוּ “delivered him over” is, once more, wayyittənêhū (H5414) — “and He gave him.” The fourth appearance of nāṯan in the unit: promised (v. 24), purposed (v. 30), announced (v. 31), now accomplished. The victory is narrated as a handing-over, not a feat of Israelite arms.
• וַנַּ֥ךְ “we defeated him” renders wannak (H5221, Hifil), to strike / smite — a blunt military verb. Israel acts, truly and violently; but the verb stands after God's giving, the human blow falling only on the enemy God has first delivered up.
• בְּנוֹ “and his sons” reflects a textual subtlety the commentators flag: the written consonants (Ketiv) read bənô, “his son” (singular); the vowels (Qere) read “his sons.” Ellicott prefers the singular — “possibly a person of distinction.” The parse follows the read text; the honest note belongs to the margin.

Where the English smooths the original

• וַֽנַּחֲרֵם֙ “devoted to destruction” renders wannaḥărêm (H2763), the Hifil of ḥāram — to place under the ḥerem, the ban. This is not ordinary slaughter but a sacral act: the population set apart to God by destruction. Ellicott: “This could only be by Divine direction. The word implies nothing less.”
• מְתִ֔ם “the people” renders məṯim (H4962), not the usual word for males but a term for men / persons generally. Keil's terse note governs the syntax: məṯim ‘îr, “city of men,” means “the town population of men” — the inhabited city as a whole, then specified as women and children.
• שָׂרִֽיד “survivors” is śārîḏ (H8300), a survivor, one who remains. The flat finality of “we left no śārîḏ” is the ban's signature — the same word that elsewhere measures the totality of judgment (Joshua 10:28; Numbers 21:35). Nothing is held back from the devotion.

Where the English smooths the original

• רַ֥ק “only” is again raq (H7535) — the same limiting particle that scaled down Israel's request in v. 28 now scales down what was kept from the ban. The cattle and goods alone were spared; the limitation is deliberate and recorded, marking exactly where the ḥerem stopped.
• בָּזַ֣זְנוּ “carried off… plundered” renders bāzaznū (H962), to plunder, take as spoil. The verb is honest about what it was — looting of a defeated enemy. Yet set against the devoted (banned) human population of v. 34, the plundered cattle are precisely the portion not claimed by God's exclusive ban.
• וּשְׁלַ֥ל “the plunder” is šəlal (H7998), booty, spoil. The split here — devoted persons, plundered property — is the exact pattern the Cambridge editors note as peculiar to the Sihon and Og campaigns: neither the full ban of the seven nations nor the milder rule for distant cities, but a combination of both.

Where the English smooths the original

• שְׂפַת־ “the rim” renders śəp̄aṯ (H8193), literally the lip — the same word for the lip of a mouth, here the edge of the gorge (Cambridge: “Edge, Heb. lip.”). Aroer perches on the very lip of the Arnon chasm; the Hebrew gives the cliff a face.
• שָׂגְבָ֖ה “too high” is śāḡəḇāh (H7682), to be lofty / inaccessible — not merely tall walls but unreachably high, beyond storming. Cambridge notes the phrase occurs in prose only here and in Job 5:11. Every such stronghold fell, the impregnable made reachable.
• נָתַ֛ן “gave” is the unit's signature verb one last time, nāṯan (H5414), here in the summary: “the LORD our God gave all of them before us.” The territorial roll-call from Aroer to Gilead closes, like every movement of the unit, on God as the Giver of the whole.

Where the English smooths the original

• רַ֛ק The unit closes as the requests opened — with raq (H7535), “only.” The third use of this limiting particle in the unit (vv. 28, 35, 37) draws the final boundary: total conquest of Sihon, but a hard line at Ammon's border. Obedience is measured by where Israel stopped.
• קָרָ֑בְתָּ “go near” renders qārāḇtā (H7126), to approach / draw near. Israel did not so much as approach Ammon — restraint enacted at the level of the first step, not merely the final assault. The conquered land was given; the forbidden land was not even neared.
• צִוָּ֖ה “had forbidden” renders ṣiwwāh (H6680), which actually means commanded / charged. Poole and the Cambridge editors both note the idiom: “commanding is put for forbidding here.” What God commanded concerning Ammon was a prohibition — His positive charge and Israel's restraint are the same obedience.