Exodus 4:29

Summary

The verse narrates that Moses and Aaron went and assembled all the elders of the people of Israel. It is a simple narrative sequence: first movement (going), then action (gathering), with a defined object (the elders of Israel).

Key words

• va-yeLekh ("he went", H1980) — qal narrative form, third person masculine singular; despite naming two subjects (Moses and Aaron), the verb is grammatically singular, a common Biblical Hebrew pattern when compound subjects are introduced with the first name governing the verb.
• ya'asFu ("they gathered", H0622) — qal narrative form, third person masculine plural; here the verb shifts to plural, agreeing with both Moses and Aaron as joint agents of the gathering.
• zikNei ("elders of", H2205) — masculine plural construct; grammatically bound to the following noun, meaning it cannot stand alone but must be read as "elders of [something]".
• beNei ("sons/people of", H1121) — masculine plural construct; also bound to what follows, forming the chain "elders of the sons of Israel."
• 'et (H0853) — direct object marker; signals that "all the elders" is the grammatical object of the verb ya'asFu, with no semantic content of its own.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built as two sequential narrative clauses joined by the vav-consecutive pattern (va-yeLekh... va-ya'asFu...), a structure typical of Biblical Hebrew storytelling where each verb form marks the next event in sequence: "and he went... and then they gathered." The subject shift from singular (yeLekh, "he went") to plural (ya'asFu, "they gathered") is worth noting: although both Moses and Aaron are named as subjects from the start, Hebrew grammar allows the first verb to remain singular, agreeing only with the first-named subject (Moses), while the second verb becomes plural once both are established as joint actors.

The object of the gathering is expressed through a chain of construct nouns: kol ("all") governs zikNei ("elders of"), which in turn governs beNei Yisra'El ("the sons/people of Israel"). This construct chain in Hebrew produces a single compact phrase, "all the elders of the people of Israel," where each noun depends grammatically on the next, a structure that Hebrew handles through construct forms rather than prepositions.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the first verb as ἐπορεύθη ("he went"), singular, matching the Hebrew's singular va-yeLekh, but its sentence structure omits a clear equivalent verb for "gathered," instead placing τὴν γερουσίαν ("the council/elders") directly after the subjects without an explicit gathering verb in the quoted text. The Vulgate renders the opening differently with "Veneruntque simul" ("and they came together"), a plural verb from the start, diverging from the Hebrew's singular-then-plural verb sequence. The Vulgate's "seniores" ("elders") and the Hebrew zikNei correspond closely, while the Spanish SBLIBRE translates the same word as "líderes" ("leaders"), a translational choice rather than a divergence in the source text itself.