Numbers 12:4

Summary

Yehovah speaks abruptly to Moses, Aaron, and Miriam, commanding the three of them to come out to the Tent of Meeting. The verse frames this with a double occurrence of the numeral "three," first as a command and then confirming their compliance.

Key words

• pit'om ("suddenly", H6597) — an adverb marking the abruptness of the divine speech-act, setting off this scene from ordinary narrative pacing.
• tze'u ("come out", H3318) — qal imperative, plural, directly addressing all three figures as a single command.
• shelashtekhem ("the three of you", H7969 + suffix) — the cardinal number in construct form with a 2nd person masculine plural suffix, binding the three individuals into one grammatical unit receiving the command.
• 'ohel mo'ed ("tent of meeting", H0168 + H4150) — two nouns in construct chain, naming the specific destination of the summons.
• shelashtam ("the three of them", H7969 + suffix) — the same numeral construct, now with a 3rd person masculine plural suffix, echoing the command in the narration of the outcome.

What the text says

The verse opens with the narrative va-yomer ("and he said", H0559) chain typical of Hebrew storytelling, immediately followed by pit'om ("suddenly", H6597), an adverb that is somewhat unusual in its placement — it modifies the divine speech-act itself, stressing the unexpectedness of Yehovah's intervention rather than describing a scene. The three addressees are introduced serially with the preposition 'el ("to", H0413) repeated before each name (Moses, Aaron, Miriam), a common Hebrew construction for listing multiple recipients of a single speech act.

The command itself, tze'u shelashtekhem ("come out, the three of you"), uses the construct numeral shelashtekhem (H7969 with suffix) to bind the plural imperative tze'u (H3318) to all three figures as a unified addressee, rather than issuing three separate commands. The destination, 'el 'ohel mo'ed ("to the tent of meeting"), uses the preposition 'el again, marking directional goal. The verse closes with a narrative report, va-yetze'u shelashtam ("and the three of them went out"), mirroring the command's grammar almost exactly, but with the numeral now taking a 3rd person suffix (shelashtam, H7969) instead of 2nd person, and the verb shifting from imperative to narrative form (va-yetze'u, H3318). This structural echo—command and compliance sharing the same numeral construction—emphasizes the precise correspondence between what was ordered and what occurred.

Differences between versions

The LXX text as given names only Moses and Miriam (Μωυσῆν καὶ Μαριὰμ) in the divine address, without an explicit mention of Aaron, where the Hebrew lists all three names separately with 'el before each. The LXX also renders the destination τὴν σκηνὴν τοῦ μαρτυρίου ("the tent of testimony") in the accusative without a preposition, whereas the Hebrew uses 'el ("to", H0413) to mark it as a goal of motion. The Vulgate opens with "locutus est ad eum" ("he spoke to him"), using a pronoun rather than restating "Moses," continuing syntactically from the prior verse rather than repeating the name as the Hebrew does.