TO BEGIN — the Hif’il of a root whose ordinary sense is to pierce, bore, or profane, doing service here as a separate, more technical usage. Deuteronomy 2:24-31 counts it three times in eight verses (v24, v31 twice), each time framing the Sihon conquest as a first installment rather than a completed grant — ‘begin to possess it,’ ‘I have begun to give.’ It returns, reversed, at Deuteronomy 3:24 (already on these pages): Moses throws the same word back at God as leverage for his own request — ‘you have BEGUN to show your servant your greatness’ — and is refused anyway. The root that kept promising more becomes the hinge of a plea that fails. → first discussed at Deut 2:24