Numbers 13:1

Summary

Numbers 13:1 in the Masoretic Hebrew text records a short narrative formula: Yehovah speaks to Moses. The verse consists entirely of the introductory speech-formula that in the Hebrew Bible regularly precedes divine legislation or instruction, without yet stating the content of what is said.

Key words

• va-y'daBer ("and he spoke", H1696G) — piel verb with narrative vav, marking a new event in the story sequence; the piel form intensifies "to speak" beyond a single utterance, framing this as an authoritative pronouncement.
• Yehovah ("Yehovah", H3068G) — the proper name of the speaker, subject of the verb.
• 'el ("to", H0413) — preposition marking Moses as the recipient of the speech.
• moSheh ("Moses", H4872) — proper name, the addressee.
• leMor ("saying", H0559) — qal infinitive construct, functioning as a formulaic marker that introduces direct speech to follow (the content itself is not part of this verse).

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence follows a fixed syntactic pattern common in the Torah: subject-verb inversion is avoided since the verb va-y'daBer already carries the narrative vav and comes first, followed by the subject Yehovah, then the prepositional phrase 'el-moSheh naming the recipient, and finally the infinitive leMor ("saying") which opens a slot for reported speech. In Numbers 13:1 as given here, only this introductory formula is present — the actual words spoken by Yehovah are not included in the data provided for this verse. The piel stem of daBer is the standard stem used for this verb in narrative contexts and does not by itself indicate any special emphasis beyond marking formal, direct communication from Yehovah to Moses.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew (TAHOT), reflected in RV1909, BSB, and SBLIBRE, presents the formula "Yehovah spoke to Moses, saying." The Greek text cited under LXXSWETE and the Latin cited under VULCLEM instead describe a different event: the people breaking camp from Hazeroth and camping in the wilderness of Paran (Greek: ἐξῆρεν ὁ λαὸς ἐξ Ἁσηρώθ; Latin: Profectusque est populus de Haseroth). This is not a translation of the same Hebrew clause but corresponds to content found elsewhere in the Numbers narrative (compare Numbers 12:16 in the Hebrew versification), indicating that the verse numbering in the Greek and Latin traditions cited here does not align with the Hebrew verse division at this point.