Exodus 32:28
וַיַּֽעֲשׂוּ בְנֵֽי־לֵוִי כִּדְבַר מֹשֶׁה וַיִּפֹּל מִן־הָעָם בַּיּוֹם הַהוּא כִּשְׁלֹשֶׁת אַלְפֵי אִֽישׁ׃
✦ Hebrew interlinear
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✦ The same verse in five languages
וַיַּֽעֲשׂ֥וּ בְנֵֽי־לֵוִ֖י כִּדְבַ֣ר מֹשֶׁ֑ה וַיִּפֹּ֤ל מִן־הָעָם֙ בַּיּ֣וֹם הַה֔וּא כִּשְׁלֹ֥שֶׁת אַלְפֵ֖י אִֽישׁ׃
καὶ ἐποίησαν οἱ υἱοὶ Λευεὶ καθὰ ἐλάλησεν αὐτοὶς μωυσῆς· καὶ ἔπεσαν ἐκ τοῦ λαοῦ ἐν ἐκείνῃ τῇ ἡμέρᾳ εἰς τρισχιλίους ἄνδρας.
Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0
Latin (Vulgate)
Feceruntque filii Levi juxta sermonem Moysi, cecideruntque in die illa quasi viginti tria millia hominum.
Los levitas obedecieron la orden de Moisés, y ese día murieron unas tres mil personas del pueblo.
Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)
Y los hijos de Leví lo hicieron conforme al dicho de Moisés: y cayeron del pueblo en aquel día como tres mil hombres.
The Levites did as Moses commanded, and that day about three thousand of the people fell dead.
✦ What the text says
Summary
The verse reports that the descendants of Levi acted according to the command of Moses, and that on that day about three thousand men fell from among the people. The sentence closes the episode of the golden calf's aftermath with a numerical report of the dead.
Key words
- va-ya'aSu ("and they did", H6213A) — qal verb with narrative vav, marking sequential action: "and then they did."
- bene-Levi ("sons/descendants of Levi", H1121A + H3878) — construct noun phrase naming the group as a lineage collective, not individuals acting independently.
- kidVar Mosheh ("according to the word of Moses", H1697G + H4872) — construct chain with the preposition ki (H9004, "according to"), expressing conformity to a spoken command.
- va-yiPol ("and it fell", H5307J) — qal verb, narrative vav, grammatically singular (third person masculine singular) though its referent is a large group of people.
- kishLoshet alphei ish ("about three thousand men", H7969 + H0505G + H0376G) — construct chain of number + number + noun, with ki (H9004) here functioning as "about/approximately" rather than "according to."
What the text says
The verse divides into two clauses joined by narrative vav-chains. The first clause states that bene-Levi ("descendants of Levi") acted kidVar Mosheh ("according to the word of Moses") — the construct phrase dVar Mosheh treats "word" and "Moses" as a single bound unit, emphasizing conformity to a specific utterance rather than to Moses generally. The second clause reports the consequence: va-yiPol min-ha'Am ("and it fell from the people"). The verb yiPol is grammatically singular, a common Biblical Hebrew usage where a singular verb form introduces a numerically plural or collective subject, here specified only afterward by the numeral phrase.
The temporal marker ba-yom ha-hu ("on that day") situates the event within the narrative day already established in the chapter. The closing phrase kishloshet alphei ish uses the same preposition ki (H9004) seen earlier, but here it conveys approximation ("about") rather than conformity ("according to") — the same preposition serving two distinct semantic functions within one verse, one marking obedience to a command, the other marking an estimated quantity.
Differences between versions
The Hebrew text and the LXX (Swete) both give "three thousand" (sh'lostet alphei, τρισχιλίους), and modern translations (RV1909, BSB, SBLIBRE) follow this figure. The Vulgate (Clementine), however, reads "viginti tria millia hominum" ("twenty-three thousand men"), a numerically different figure from the Hebrew and Greek witnesses provided.
This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.