Numbers 10:1

Summary

Numbers 10:1 is a short introductory formula stating that Yehovah spoke to Moses. It functions as a narrative marker opening a new divine instruction, without yet specifying its content.

Key words

va-y'daBer ("and he spoke", H1696G) — piel verb prefixed with the narrative vav; the piel stem carries an intensive or communicative nuance (verbal, directed speech) rather than the simple qal action, and the vav attaches this clause to the ongoing narrative chain of events.

Yehovah ("Yehovah", H3068G) — the divine proper name, functioning here as the grammatical subject of the verb y'daBer.

'el ("to", H0413) — preposition marking the recipient of the speech, directing the action toward Moses.

Mosheh ("Moses", H4872) — proper name, direct object of the preposition, identifying the addressee.

leMor ("saying", H0559) — qal infinitive construct with prefixed le-, a standard formula introducing reported or upcoming direct speech; literally "to say" or "in saying," it signals that what follows (in subsequent verses) will be the content of Yehovah's words.

What the text says

The verse is built on a minimal but fixed syntactic pattern common in narrative portions of the Hebrew Bible: verb + subject + prepositional phrase + infinitive of speech. The narrative vav on va-y'daBer ("and he spoke") signals sequence — this event follows directly from what precedes it in the text — while the piel stem of daBer (H1696G) is the form regularly used for verbal communication, distinct from the basic qal root meaning "to speak" in a more generic sense. The subject Yehovah (H3068G) precedes the object phrase 'el-Mosheh ("to Moses"), a common word order in Biblical Hebrew narrative for reporting speech acts.

The final word, leMor (H0559), is an infinitive construct that Biblical Hebrew regularly uses to introduce direct discourse. It does not carry independent semantic weight beyond signaling "here follows what was said." The verse itself contains no content of the speech; it is purely a framing formula, with the substance of Yehovah's words appearing in the following verses.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew va-y'daBer ("and he spoke") is rendered in the LXX with ἐλάλησεν ("he spoke"), preserving the narrative sequence with καὶ ("and"). The Vulgate's Locutusque est also preserves this connective sense via the enclitic -que ("and"). The BSB translation ("Then the LORD said") drops the explicit conjunction in favor of "Then," while SBLIBRE begins the sentence without any coordinating word, presenting the speech act as a fresh opening rather than a syntactically chained continuation.