Deuteronomy 1:23

Summary

Moses recalls that the proposal (to send scouts) seemed good to him, so he selected twelve men from among the people, one man for each tribe. The verse marks a transition from the people's suggestion to Moses' action of choosing representatives.

Key words

• va-yiTav ("and it was good", H3190) — qal verb with narrative vav, expressing sequential action: "and then it was good."
• be-'eiNai ("in my eyes", H5869I) — noun in dual construct form with 1st person suffix, an idiomatic expression meaning "in my view/opinion."
• ha-daVar ("the thing/matter", H1697I) — definite singular noun, the subject of the preceding verb; refers to the matter under discussion.
• va-'eKach ("and I took", H3947G) — qal verb with narrative vav, 1st person, continuing the narrative chain: "and then I took."
• ish 'eChad ("one man", H0376G + H0259) — singular noun with numeral, used distributively with la-Shavet ("to the tribe", H7626H) to express "one man per tribe."

What the text says

The verse opens with the idiomatic construction va-yiTav be-'eiNai ha-daVar — literally "and it was good in my eyes, the thing." The verb yiTav (H3190) agrees with the delayed subject ha-daVar (H1697I), a common Hebrew word order where the verb precedes its subject. The phrase be-'eiNai (H5869I), built from the dual noun for "eyes" plus the 1st person suffix (H9020), is a fixed idiom meaning "in my opinion" or "as I saw it," not a literal statement about eyesight.

The second clause is joined by another narrative vav: va-'eKach (H3947G), "and I took," continuing the first-person narrative voice established in yiTav. The object is introduced by mi-Kem ("from you," H9006+H9036), specifying that the twelve men came from the addressed group. The numeral construction sheNeim 'aSar ("two-plus-ten," H8147+H6240) modifies 'anaShim ("men," H0582), giving "twelve men." The final phrase ish 'eChad la-Shavet ("a man, one, to the tribe") uses apposition and distribution: ish (H0376G) and 'eChad (H0259) together specify "one man," and la-Shavet (H7626H), with the preposition-article combination la- (H9005), indicates "for/to each tribe," producing the distributive sense "one man per tribe."

Differences between versions

The LXX renders ha-daVar ("the thing," H1697I) as τὸ ῥῆμα ("the word/matter"), a close semantic match. The Vulgate paraphrases the opening idiom as "Cumque mihi sermo placuisset" ("and since the word had pleased me"), turning the Hebrew's verb-first construction into a subordinate temporal clause. Where the Hebrew has va-'eKach ("and I took," H3947G), the Vulgate uses "misi" ("I sent"), a different verb choice from the Hebrew's "took" and the LXX's ἔλαβον ("I took"), which matches the Hebrew more closely than the Vulgate does.