Numbers 11:24

Summary

Moses goes out and communicates Yehovah's words to the people, then gathers seventy men from among the elders of the people and stations them around the tent. The verse narrates a sequence of four actions performed by Moses, each introduced by a converted narrative form.

Key words

• va-yetze (from yatza, "he went out", H3318G) — qal narrative form; the vav-consecutive marks this as the first event in the sequence, "and then he went out."
• va-y'daber ("he spoke", H1696G) — piel narrative form; piel here carries the intensive/declarative sense of formally relaying a message, not casual speech.
• divrei ("words of", H1697G) — masculine plural construct; grammatically bound to Yehovah that follows, producing "the words of Yehovah" as a single phrase, the content of what Moses speaks.
• zikney ("elders of", H2205G) — masculine plural construct; bound to ha-'am ("the people"), specifying that the seventy men come from this particular group, not elders in general.
• va-ya'amed (from the causative stem, "he stationed", H5975J) — hiphil narrative form; the hiphil stem makes this causative — Moses does not merely stand but causes the seventy to stand/be positioned.

What the text says

The verse is built as a chain of four narrative verbs, each attached by the vav-consecutive (va, H9001), which in Biblical Hebrew narrative sequences one completed action after another: Moses "went out" (va-yetze), "spoke" (va-y'daber), "gathered" (va-ye'esof), and "stationed" (va-ya'amed). This chain structure presents the four actions as a single continuous episode rather than as separate, unconnected events.

The object of Moses' speech is marked by the direct object particle 'et (H0853), which is grammatically necessary but has no independent translation, followed by the construct phrase divrei Yehovah ("the words of Yehovah"). The construct chain zikney ha-'am ("elders of the people") similarly specifies which seventy men are gathered — drawn min ("from", H9006) the existing body of elders, rather than being a newly created office. The final verb, va-ya'amed, uses the hiphil (causative) stem, distinguishing it from a simple qal "he stood": Moses acts upon the seventy, causing them to be positioned sevivot ha-'ohel ("around the tent", using a plural construct noun for "around").

Differences between versions

The Vulgate names the elders as being "de senibus Israël" ("from the elders of Israel"), where the Hebrew and the LXX (τῶν πρεσβυτέρων τοῦ λαοῦ, "of the elders of the people") both specify "the people" (ha-'am) rather than "Israel." This is a difference in the referent of the group from which the seventy are drawn.