Numbers 11:27

Summary

A young man runs to report to Moses that Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp. The verse is structured as a chain of three consecutive narrative actions (running, telling, speaking) that culminate in the direct report about the two men.

Key words

• va-i.Ya.rotz ("and he ran", H7323G) — qal narrative form; the initial vav plus prefixed verb marks this as the first event in a sequential chain, establishing urgency at the start of the scene.
• ha.Na.'ar ("the young man", H5288) — masculine singular noun with definite article; identifies the messenger without naming him, in contrast to Eldad and Medad who are named.
• va-i.ya.Ged ("and he told", H5046) — hiphil (causative) narrative form; the causative stem frames the action as "causing to know/report" rather than a simple act of speaking, distinct from the following va-i.yo.Mar ("and he said", H0559).
• mit.na.be.'Im ("[are] prophesying", H5012) — hithpael participle, masculine plural; the hithpael (often reflexive/reciprocal) stem describes an ongoing state or repeated activity of Eldad and Medad, and the participle form (rather than a finite verb) presents the action as continuous, in progress at the moment of the report.
• ba.ma.cha.Neh ("in the camp", H4264) — feminine singular noun with prefixed preposition and article; locates the participle's action spatially, anchoring the report to a specific place.

What the text says

The Hebrew verse is built as a rapid sequence of three narrative verbs joined by the narrative vav (va, H9001): va-i.Ya.rotz ("and he ran"), va-i.ya.Ged ("and he told"), va-i.yo.Mar ("and he said"). This chain produces a staccato effect — running, reporting, speaking — before the content of the speech is given. The subject of the first two verbs is ha.Na.'ar ("the young man", H5288), an unnamed figure marked only by the definite article, which assumes the reader/hearer can identify him from context though the text itself does not name him.

The content of what is reported is introduced by a second speech verb, va-i.yo.Mar ("and he said"), which follows the hiphil va-i.ya.Ged ("and he told"). The Hebrew here uses two verbs of communication in sequence — the causative "told" and the simple "said" — before quoting the message itself: 'el.Dad and mei.Dad (Eldad and Medad) are mit.na.be.'Im ("prophesying", H5012), a hithpael participle. The participle form conveys an action presented as ongoing rather than a completed single event, and grammatically it takes no explicit subject marker beyond agreement in gender and number with the two names, functioning almost as a predicate nominal describing their current state. The phrase closes with ba.ma.cha.Neh ("in the camp", H4264), locating this ongoing activity.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the double Hebrew speech sequence (va-i.ya.Ged ... va-i.yo.Mar, "and he told... and he said") with ἀπήγγειλεν... καὶ εἶπεν λέγων, preserving a similar double-verb structure. The Vulgate simplifies this to a single reporting verb, nuntiavit... dicens ("he told... saying"), collapsing the two Hebrew speech verbs into one main verb plus a participle. The Vulgate also reorders the verse, placing the clause about prophesying in the camp (cumque prophetarent in castris) before the young man's run, whereas the Hebrew and LXX place the running and reporting first, with the prophesying content given only in the quoted speech.