Numbers 12:13

Summary

Moses cries out to Yehovah on behalf of Miriam, asking God to heal her. The plea is short and urgent, built on a verb of crying out followed by a brief direct quotation containing a double use of the particle of entreaty "please."

Key words

• i.yitz.'Ak ("he cried out", H6817) — qal narrative verb; the vav-consecutive form marks this as the next event in the story sequence, indicating an urgent, loud appeal rather than a calm request.
• 'el ("O God", H410) — a short, general noun for "God" or "deity," used here as a vocative address rather than the covenant name Yehovah used earlier in the same verse.
• na' ("please", H4994) — an interjection of entreaty; it appears twice in the verse (once attached to the address, once attached to the imperative), reinforcing the intensity of the request.
• re.Fa' ("heal", H7495) — qal imperative, second person masculine singular; a direct command form, softened by the surrounding na' particles.
• La-h ("to her", H9005 + H9034) — preposition with third-person feminine singular suffix, marking Miriam (referenced earlier in the chapter) as the object of the healing.

What the text says

The verse opens with the narrative verb i.yitz.'Ak ("he cried out"), attached to Moses by name and directed 'el-Yehovah ("to Yehovah"), followed by the infinitive le-Mor ("saying") that introduces direct speech. This construction is typical of Hebrew narrative: a reporting verb plus "saying" leads into the exact words spoken.

The quoted speech is compact: 'el na' re.Fa' na' la-h — literally "God, please, heal, please, to her." The address to God uses the shorter noun 'el rather than the divine name Yehovah used in the narrative frame, so the text shifts from the personal name to a more general term for deity within the same verse. The double occurrence of na' — one directly after 'el and one directly after the imperative re.Fa' — is a feature the English and Spanish translations render as a single "please," but in the Hebrew the particle brackets the plea from both sides, intensifying the request surrounding the command itself. The imperative re.Fa' is a direct, unmodified command form; the entreaty markers around it are what soften its force. The final phrase la-h ("to her") ties the healing request to a third-person feminine referent, consistent with Miriam being the subject under discussion in the surrounding narrative context.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew's double na' ("please... please") is reduced to a single expression of pleading in the Greek (δέομαί σου, "I beg you"), the Vulgate (obsecro, "I beseech"), and the English/Spanish translations, none of which reproduce the repeated particle. The Hebrew 'el ("God") is rendered as Ὁ θεός in the LXX and Deus in the Vulgate, both matching the shift from the divine name Yehovah to a general term for God within the verse.