---
title: Numbers 5:23 (JPS 1917) — And the priest shall write these curses in a scroll, and he shall bl… · tree and pragmatics
description: And the priest shall write these curses in a scroll, and he shall blot them out into the water of bitterness. Who acts: priest, belly. Numbers 5:23 in JPS 1917 with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Numbers 5:23 · JPS 1917

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
And the priest shall write these curses in a scroll, and he shall blot them out into the water of bitterness.

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**Who acts:** priest, belly · **What happens:** write, blot out · **To what, where:** curses, scroll, thigh, water

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This is Numbers 5:23 · JPS 1917 in the English of the Jewish Publication Society's 1917 translation, from Mova's open Bible corpus. The page gives the sentence's syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies, parsed by Mova and checked by a teacher model — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (priest, belly), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it. The original of the verse links back to its own tree and to the Targum.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = jps:NUM:212
# text = And the priest shall write these curses in a scroll, and he shall blot them out into the water of bitterness.
1	And	and	CCONJ	CC	_	5	cc	_	_
2	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	3	det	_	_
3	priest	priest	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	nsubj	_	_
4	shall	shall	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	5	aux	_	_
5	write	write	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	0	root	_	_
6	these	this	DET	DT	Number=Plur|PronType=Dem	7	det	_	_
7	curses	curse	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	5	obj	_	_
8	in	in	ADP	IN	_	10	case	_	_
9	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	10	det	_	_
10	scroll	scroll	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	5	obl	_	_
11	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	15	punct	_	_
12	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	15	cc	_	_
13	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	nsubj	_	_
14	shall	shall	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	15	aux	_	_
15	blot	blot	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	5	conj	_	_
16	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	15	obj	_	_
17	out	out	ADP	RP	_	15	compound:prt	_	_
18	into	into	ADP	IN	_	20	case	_	_
19	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	20	det	_	_
20	water	water	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	15	obl	_	_
21	of	of	ADP	IN	_	22	case	_	_
22	bitterness	bitterness	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	20	nmod	_	_
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	5	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- sa -->
- form: statement
- act: narrate
- voice: narrator
- polarity: none
- teacher: kept the draft

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **write** | shall | the priest | this curses |  | a scroll |  |  | vn scribble-25.2-1 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent curse=Theme in scroll=Destination |
| 2 | **blot out** | shall | belly | thigh |  | the water of bitterness |  |  | vn fill-9.8 «NP V NP.destination»: agent=Agent they=Destination |

<!-- .note -->
One row per clause the reader finds. «not said here»: a role filled from the clause above. «roles by»: a VerbNet class and frame when one fits the verb, else the reader's rules on the tree.

## The Hebrew of this verse {#hebrew}

<!-- .vhe dir=rtl lang=hbo -->
וְ֠כָתַב אֶת־הָאָלֹ֥ת הָאֵ֛לֶּה הַכֹּהֵ֖ן בַּסֵּ֑פֶר וּמָחָ֖ה אֶל־מֵ֥י הַמָּרִֽים׃

[Numbers 5:23: the Hebrew tree, its pragmatics and Targum Onkelos →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/torah/NUM.5.23/)

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**Source.** The Holy Scriptures according to the Masoretic Text, Jewish Publication Society, 1917, from eBible.org: public domain. Sentence `jps:NUM:212` of Mova's parse database.

**The tree and the speech act** come from Mova's cycle: the small model's draft, read by a large model as teacher, passed by Mova's gates (Elamur Cosmic License). **The frames** are read from the tree by Mova's frames reader (`prag`) when this page is built, the chapter read in order, so a pronoun may be resolved from an earlier sentence of the chapter.

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