Numbers 11:28

Summary

Joshua son of Nun, described as Moses' attendant since his youth, speaks up in response to the prophesying happening in the camp and asks Moses to stop it. The verse introduces Joshua's direct speech, quoted in the following clause: "my lord Moses, restrain them."

Key words

• va-Ya'an ("he answered", H6030B) — qal narrative verb; opens the episode marking Joshua's verbal response to what has just occurred.
• mesharet ("servant of", H8334) — piel participle in construct form; describes Joshua's ongoing function as Moses' attendant, not a one-time action.
• mi-bechuraw ("from his youth[s]", H0979 + suffix) — plural noun in construct with a pronominal suffix, preceded by the preposition mi ("from"); indicates the starting point of Joshua's service, literally "from his youths" (plural form used for the abstract period of youth).
• adoni ("my lord", H0113 + suffix) — construct noun with 1st-person suffix; the vocative address Joshua uses toward Moses.
• kela'em ("restrain them", H3607 + suffix) — qal imperative with 3rd-person plural suffix; a direct command form, "restrain them," addressed to Moses.

What the text says

The verse is built as a narrative chain using two waw-consecutive verbs: va-Ya'an ("he answered") and va-yomar ("he said"), a common Biblical Hebrew pattern where "answering" introduces the fact of speaking and "saying" introduces the actual words. Between these two verbs, the text inserts an identifying description of Joshua: he is "son of Nun" (patronymic), "servant of Moses" (using the participle mesharet, which frames his role as an ongoing function rather than a past event), and this service is qualified by mi-bechuraw, "from his youth(s)" — a plural noun form used idiomatically for the concept of youth as a life-period.

The quoted speech itself is compact: the vocative adoni Mosheh ("my lord Moses") precedes the imperative kela'em ("restrain them"), with no additional verbs or explanatory clauses. The imperative form directly commands action, and the pronominal suffix on kela'em refers back to the unnamed group causing concern in the wider context, without the noun itself appearing in this verse.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew mi-bechuraw ("from his youth") is rendered differently in the Greek and Latin: the LXX gives ho eklektos ("the chosen one"), and the Vulgate gives electus e pluribus ("chosen from many"). Both the LXX and Vulgate diverge from the Hebrew's temporal sense (service since youth) toward a sense of selection or distinction. Additionally, the LXX text as given does not clearly preserve a verb corresponding to va-Ya'an ("he answered"), presenting the introduction of Joshua's speech without a matching narrative verb parallel to the Hebrew.