Numbers 10:24

Summary

The verse names Abidan son of Gideoni as the man positioned over the military division (tzeva) of the tribe of the descendants of Benjamin, continuing the list of tribal marching-order leaders in Numbers 10.

Key words

• tze.Va' ("[the] military group of", H6635A) — masculine singular construct noun, the first link in a construct chain describing the specific armed contingent assigned to Benjamin.
• ma.Teh ("[the] tribe of", H4294H) — masculine singular construct, chained to tze.Va', identifying whose division is meant.
• be.Nei ("[the] descendants of", H1121G) — masculine plural construct, continuing the chain: "tribe of the sons of Benjamin."
• 'a.vi.Dan ("Abidan", H0027) — proper name, the individual identified as leader, introduced without a copula or verb.
• ben- ("[the] son of", H1121A) — construct noun linking Abidan to his father's name, gid.'o.Ni ("Gideoni", H1441).

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built as a nominal clause without a stated verb. The preposition 'Al- ("over") governs a four-term construct chain — tzeva matteh benei Vinyamin, literally "the army of the tribe of the sons of Benjamin" — and this entire phrase is then simply juxtaposed with the personal name Avidan ben Gid'oni. Biblical Hebrew regularly omits the verb "to be" in such identificatory clauses, so the relationship ("is over," "was over") must be supplied by the reader from context; the text itself only states the preposition and the names.

The construct chain shows a layered administrative structure: a tzeva ("military group") belonging to a matteh ("tribe") belonging to the benei Vinyamin ("sons/descendants of Benjamin"). Abidan is identified patronymically as ben Gid'oni ("son of Gideoni"), the standard way personal names are anchored in this list of tribal representatives.

Differences between versions

The Vulgate ("Et in tribu Benjamin erat dux Abidan filius Gedeonis") supplies an explicit verb, erat ("was"), and the noun dux ("leader"), neither of which appears as separate lexical items in the Hebrew; it also does not render tzeva ("army/division") as a distinct term, collapsing the construct chain into "in the tribe of Benjamin." The LXX (καὶ ἐπὶ τῆς δυνάμεως φυλῆς υἱῶν Βενιαμείν) preserves a term corresponding to tzeva (δυνάμεως, "of the force/host"), keeping the construct-like structure closer to the Hebrew than the Vulgate does. The BSB and SBLIBRE both insert an explicit verb ("was over," "estaba al frente de") to render the Hebrew's verbless nominal clause into standard English/Spanish syntax.