תְּנוּאָה

From the study of Numbers 14:34

Range of meaning

The noun comes from the root נוא (nwʾ). In the causative form that root means "to hinder, restrain, frustrate, cancel." A father or husband can "forbid" a woman's vow and so cancel it (Numbers 30:5, 8, 11). In Numbers 32:7, 9 the scouts' report "discouraged" (literally "blocked") the hearts of Israel from going into the land. The noun means a blocking, a frustrating, or opposition. It occurs only here and in Job 33:10, where Elihu quotes Job as complaining that God "finds occasions (tənûʾôt) against me": grounds for hostility, pretexts for opposing him.

Against the English

English versions spread widely: KJV "breach of promise", YLT "breaking off", BSB/WEB "alienation", ESV "displeasure", NASB "opposition", NIV "what it is like to have me against you", NLT "what it is like to have me for an enemy." "Opposition" and the NIV paraphrase stay closest to the root. "Displeasure" makes it an emotion, when the word is about something being blocked. "Breach of promise" reads it as God cancelling His pledge, just as a father cancels a vow in ch. 30. That fits the root's legal use, but in modern English it sounds as if God broke His word.

How it drifted

KJV's "breach of promise" probably reflects the cancelling-a-vow sense of the root (Num 30) and the idea that the promise of the land was withdrawn from this generation. Over time "breach of promise" became a legal phrase for breaking an engagement to marry, which makes the line sound like God reneged.

Used elsewhere in the period

The verb root appears in Num 30:6, 9, 12; 32:7, 9; and Ps 33:10 ("He frustrates the plans of the peoples"). The noun appears in Job 33:10. The Greek Septuagint paraphrases it as "the fury of my anger". The Latin Vulgate has "my vengeance" (ultio). Both ancient translators gave the sense of hostility and did not try to reproduce the rare word itself. Medieval Jewish commentary (Rashi) takes it as "turning away": you turned your hearts away from Me.