Deuteronomy 10:6

Summary

The verse narrates a stage of Israel's journey: they traveled from Beeroth Bene-Yaakan to Moserah, where Aaron died and was buried, and his son Eleazar succeeded him in the priestly office.

Key words

• na.se.'U ("they set out", H5265) — qal perfect, 3rd person plural, marking a completed action of departure by "the sons of Israel" as a collective subject.
• met ("he died", H4191) — qal perfect, 3rd person singular, a simple completed-action verb stating Aaron's death.
• i.yi.ka.Ver ("he was buried", H6912) — niphal (passive) verb with narrative vav, indicating Aaron was the recipient of the burial action, not the one performing it; the narrative vav links this event sequentially to the death just mentioned.
• y.kha.Hen ("he served as priest", H3547) — piel verb with narrative vav, an intensive stem describing Eleazar's active assumption of priestly duties, chained narratively to the prior events.
• tach.Ta + v ("in place of him", H8478H + H9033) — construct noun with pronominal suffix, expressing succession: Eleazar taking Aaron's position.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence structure moves through a chain of narrative verbs connected by the narrative vav (H9001), which in Biblical Hebrew signals sequential events: "and he died... and he was buried... and he served as priest." This creates a tight temporal sequence: the death, burial, and succession are presented as one continuous narrative thread rather than as separate statements. The verb met (H4191) uses the simple qal stem, presenting Aaron's death as a plain completed fact. By contrast, i.yi.ka.Ver (H6912) is in the niphal stem, the passive/reflexive form, which grammatically marks Aaron as the one acted upon — he is buried, not burying himself or another.

The final verb, y.kha.Hen (H3547), is in the piel stem, an intensive verbal pattern often used for specialized or repeated professional action, here denoting the ongoing function of serving as priest rather than a single act. The phrase tach.Ta with the suffixed v ("in place of him", H8478H + H9033) closes the verse by grammatically encoding succession — Eleazar occupies the position vacated by Aaron. The double occurrence of sham ("there", H8033G) anchors both the death and burial to the same named location, Moserah.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the place names with Greek transliterations (Βηρὼθ, Ἰακείμ, Μεισαδαί) that differ somewhat in form from the Hebrew be.'e.Rot, ya.'a.Kan, and mo.se.Rah, though referring to the same locations. The Vulgate compresses the movement into "moverunt castra" ("they moved camp"), an interpretive addition not explicit in the Hebrew verb na.se.'U ("they set out"), which simply denotes departure without specifying camp movement.