Numbers 24:5
in Numbers 24How lovely are your tents, O Jacob, your dwellings, O Israel!
BSB
The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾
ASV
How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob, Thy tabernacles, O Israel!
KJV
How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob, and thy tabernacles, O Israel!
⋯
This verse in Numbers 24
Commentary
5 notes on this verseA commentator
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown1802–1910
Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)
How goodly are thy tents, . . . O Israel!--a fine burst of admiration, expressed in highly poetical strains. All travellers describe the beauty which the circular area of Bedouin tents impart to the desert.
This site's exposition
How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob
on Numbers 24:5-6
The man hired to curse supplies the words that open the Jewish morning prayer known as Mah Tovu, which begins from verse 5. What he praises is what he can see from the height, tents pitched by standard, and the four pictures in verse 6 are all of water and growth in dry country. Trees the Lord hath planted is the one picture with a planter named in it, and Psalm 1:3 keeps the same figure. Keil and Delitzsch identify the lign aloes as an eastern tree that did not grow in Moab, so the image is fetched from beyond the speaker's own country.
The record, by era
The Medieval Church1 voice
A commentator
BonaventureCollations on the Hexaemeron, Collation 14 · Written in the 13th century.
proposed
Concerning the production of foliage, it is said in the Book of Numbers: "How goodly are your tents, O Jacob; your encampments, O Israel! They are like gardens beside a stream." These are the mysteries of Scripture. Who can conceive the charm of the mysteries …
The Puritans and the Awakening2 voices
): How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob! Though they dwelt not in stately palaces, but in coarse and homely tents, and these, no doubt, sadly weather-beaten, yet Balaam sees a beauty in those tents, because of their admirable order, according to their tribes,
quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — leading-punctuation+unbalanced-parens
How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob,....
The words behind it
6 Hebrew wordsEvery Hebrew word of this verse in the order it stands, with what it means and the door to its own study. The last column counts the times a word stands in the whole Bible: the rarer the word, the more the places it appears belong together.
| Hebrew | Sound | Meaning | Word study | In the Bible |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| מַה־ | mah- | how! | H4100 → | 752 times |
| טֹּ֥בוּ | tou | they are good | H2895 → | 45 times |
| אֹהָלֶ֖יךָ | ʾohaleikha | tents your | H168 → | 345 times |
| יַעֲקֹ֑ב | yaako | O Jacob | H3290 → | 350 times |
| מִשְׁכְּנֹתֶ֖יךָ | mishkenoteikha | dwelling places your | H4908 → | 139 times |
| יִשְׂרָאֵֽל׃ | yisrael | O Israel | H3478 → | 2507 times |
מַה־how!
mah-H4100 →752 times
טֹּ֥בוּthey are good
touH2895 →45 times
אֹהָלֶ֖יךָtents your
ʾohaleikhaH168 →345 times
יַעֲקֹ֑בO Jacob
yaakoH3290 →350 times
מִשְׁכְּנֹתֶ֖יךָdwelling places your
mishkenoteikhaH4908 →139 times
יִשְׂרָאֵֽל׃O Israel
yisraelH3478 →2507 times
A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.
Where this verse is studied
On this page
About Numbers
Who and where
1 name in this verse with a page on the site.
This page draws on Bonaventure, Collations on the Hexaemeron, Collation 14; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763); Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: The Pentateuch and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.