Exodus 6:17
בְּנֵי גֵרְשׁוֹן לִבְנִי וְשִׁמְעִי לְמִשְׁפְּחֹתָֽם׃
✦ Hebrew interlinear
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✦ The same verse in five languages
בְּנֵ֥י גֵרְשׁ֛וֹן לִבְנִ֥י וְשִׁמְעִ֖י לְמִשְׁפְּחֹתָֽם׃
καὶ οὗτοι υἱοὶ Γεδσών· Λοβενὶ ἴ’, οἶκοι πατριᾶς αὐτῶν.
Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0
Latin (Vulgate)
Filii Gerson: Lobni et Semei, per cognationes suas.
Los hijos de Gersón fueron: Libní y Simeí, con sus respectivas familias.
Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)
Y los hijos de Gersón: Libni, y Shimi, por sus familias.
The sons of Gershon were Libni and Shimei, by their clans.
✦ What the text says
Summary
The verse lists the descendants of Gershon, one of Levi's sons, naming his two sons Libni and Shimei, and identifies them according to their family clans.
Key words
be.Nei ("sons of", H1121A) — masculine plural construct noun, opening the genealogical formula and linking Gershon to his descendants.
Ge.re.Shon ("Gershon", H1648) — proper name, identifying the specific lineage of Levi being enumerated in this verse.
liv.Ni ("Libni", H3845G) — proper name, the first son of Gershon named in the list.
shim.'I ("Shimei", H8096G) — proper name, the second son of Gershon, joined to the first by the conjunction ve ("and", H9002).
mish.pe.cho.Tam ("their clans", H4940 + H9028) — feminine plural construct noun with third-person masculine plural suffix, closing the verse by classifying the named individuals as heads of family groups.
What the text says
The Hebrew sentence follows a standard genealogical pattern found throughout Exodus 6: a construct phrase be.Nei Ge.re.Shon ("sons of Gershon") establishes the paternal line, followed by the two proper names liv.Ni and shim.'I joined by the conjunction ve. The verse closes with the prepositional phrase le.mish.pe.cho.Tam ("to/according to their clans"), where the preposition le (H9005) attaches to the construct noun mish.pe.cho.Tam, itself bearing a third-person masculine plural possessive suffix referring back to Libni and Shimei.
The construct chain be.Nei Ge.re.Shon functions as a title heading the list, not as a full clause with a verb — the sentence has no finite verb, relying instead on the nominal construction typical of genealogical registers in this chapter. The final phrase le.mish.pe.cho.Tam indicates that Libni and Shimei are being presented as the founders or heads of subdivided family units (mish.pe.cho.Tam), a term distinct from the larger tribal or clan designation of Gershon himself.
Differences between versions
The LXX renders Ge.re.Shon ("Gershon", H1648) as Γεδσών (Gedsōn), showing a consonantal shift (delta for resh) not present in the Hebrew or the Vulgate's Gerson. The LXX also renders shim.'I ("Shimei") ambiguously as ἴ' (an abbreviated form), differing from the fuller transliterations in the Hebrew, Vulgate (Semei), and modern translations. The Vulgate's Lobni reflects a vowel variation from the Hebrew liv.Ni, though both refer to the same individual.
This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.