Exodus 6:25

Summary

Exodus 6:25 records that Eleazar, son of Aaron, took a wife from among the daughters of Putiel, who bore him Phinehas. The verse closes a genealogical section by identifying this list as the heads of the ancestral houses of the Levites, organized by clans.

Key words

• la.kach ("he took", H3947I) — qal perfect, third person masculine singular; expresses a completed action, the standard verb for "taking" a wife in genealogical notices.
• be.Not ("daughters of", H1323G) — feminine plural construct of bat, linking to Putiel in a genitive relationship ("daughters of Putiel").
• Te.led ("she bore", H3205) — qal narrative form (vav-consecutive), continuing the sequence of events: after the marriage, the birth follows.
• ra.Shei ("heads of", H7218H) — masculine plural construct of rosh, introducing the summarizing genealogical formula.
• 'a.Vot ("ancestors of", H0001G) — feminine plural construct of 'av, here in a technical genealogical sense ("ancestral houses"), governing ha.l.vi.Yim.

What the text says

The verse has two parts joined by the narrative vav on va.Te.led. The first part is a simple perfect clause: 'El.'a.Zar ben-'Aharon la.kach-lo mi.be.Not Puti'El lo le.'ishah — "Eleazar son of Aaron took for himself, from the daughters of Putiel, for himself, a wife." The repetition of the pronominal suffix lo ("for himself"/"to him") in items 7 and 12 of the word list reflects a Hebrew idiom that emphasizes the personal nature of the action (taking a wife "for himself") and later the birth ("she bore to him"), a construction not always rendered twice in translation.

The second clause, introduced by the narrative va.Te.led, moves the action forward: "and she bore to him Phinehas," using the direct object marker 'et (H0853) before the proper name, a grammatical marker with no independent meaning in translation.

The final sentence shifts from narrative to summary: 'Eleh ra.Shei 'a.Vot ha.l.vi.Yim le.mishpe.choTam — "These are the heads of the ancestral houses of the Levites, according to their clans." The construct chain ra.Shei... 'a.Vot... ha.l.vi.Yim stacks three nouns in succession, each governing the next, producing a compact genealogical formula: "heads-of-ancestors-of-the-Levites." The final preposition le- on mishpe.choTam ("to/according to their clans") marks the distributive sense — organizing these heads by clan grouping.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders rashei 'avot as αἱ πατριᾶς ("the patriarchal houses/clans"), condensing the double Hebrew construct (heads of the ancestors) into a single Greek noun, without an explicit equivalent for ra.Shei ("heads"). The Vulgate similarly gives "principes familiarum" ("chiefs of the families"), matching the Hebrew construct chain more closely than the LXX by preserving both a "chief/head" term and a "families" term.