Numbers 10:28

Summary

This verse closes the section on Israel's marching order in the wilderness with a summarizing formula: "These are the settings out of the sons of Israel according to their military groups, and they set out." It functions as a narrative hinge, both concluding the preceding list of tribal arrangements and resuming the action of departure.

Key words

• 'Elleh ("these", H0428) — demonstrative particle pointing backward to the tribal order just described in the preceding verses.
• mas'ei ("settings out of", H4550) — masculine plural construct noun, linked to bene Yisra'el; denotes the stages or departures of a journey, not a single event but a series.
• tziv'otam ("their military groups", H6635A + H9028) — feminine plural construct noun with 3rd person masculine plural suffix, governed by the preposition le ("to/according to", H9005); specifies the organizing principle (by military divisions) for the mas'ei.
• vayyisa'u ("and they set out", H5265) — qal verb in narrative (wayyiqtol) form, masculine plural; the narrative vav (H9001) marks this as the next sequential action, shifting from summary back into story time.

What the text says

The verse divides into two grammatical units. The first (words 1–7) is a nominal clause: 'Elleh ("these") as subject-pointer, followed by the predicate noun mas'ei in construct with bene Yisra'el ("sons of Israel"), further specified by the prepositional phrase le-tziv'otam ("according to their military groups"). This construction has no verb — it is a label or caption summarizing what was just narrated, not a new action.

The second unit is the single verb vayyisa'u ("and they set out"), attached by the narrative vav. This vav does not simply mean "and" in a neutral sense; it signals continuation of the story sequence, effectively saying "and then they set out" — resuming the movement of the camp after the descriptive pause. The juxtaposition of a verbless summary clause followed immediately by a narrative verb is a feature the English glosses can preserve only awkwardly, since English requires a main verb even in the summary portion (hence "This was the order of march").

Differences between versions

The LXX renders mas'ei ("settings out") as αἱ στρατιαὶ ("the armies"), collapsing the Hebrew's two distinct nouns (mas'ei and tziv'otam, "settings out" and "military groups") into a single military term, and omits an equivalent for 'Elleh ("these") as a separate demonstrative subject. The Vulgate uses two nouns, "castra" ("camps") and "profectiones" ("journeys"), where the Hebrew has only one noun (mas'ei) modified by a prepositional phrase; it also adds "quando egrediebantur" ("when they were departing") as a subordinate clause, whereas the Hebrew presents vayyisa'u as a main sequential verb, not a subordinate temporal clause.