Numbers 14:4

Summary

The verse reports that the people spoke to one another, proposing to appoint a leader and return to Egypt. It is a direct-speech quotation embedded in the narrative, introduced by the standard narrative verb of saying.

Key words

• ish ("each", H0376I) — masculine singular noun used distributively with the following phrase to mean "each one to his brother/companion."
• achiv (from 'achi, "brother", H0251I) — construct noun with the 3ms pronominal suffix -v ("his"), giving "his brother," i.e., "one another."
• nittenah ("let us appoint", H5414H) — qal form functioning as a first-person plural cohortative, expressing a collective proposal or self-exhortation: "let us give/set."
• rosh ("a leader", H7218H) — masculine singular noun literally meaning "head," here used to denote a chief or leader figure.
• nashuvah ("let us return", H7725G) — qal cohortative form paralleling nittenah, expressing the second half of the collective proposal.

What the text says

The verse opens with the narrative vav on va-yomeru ("and they said," H0559), the standard device that advances the story sequence. The subject of the speech is expressed through the idiomatic distributive construction ish 'el-achiv ("each to his brother"), which in Biblical Hebrew conveys mutual or reciprocal action — "they said to one another" — rather than one person speaking to a single sibling.

The quoted speech itself consists of two parallel cohortative forms, nittenah ("let us appoint," H5414H) and nashuvah ("let us return," H7725G), both first-person plural forms that express a proposal the speakers make for themselves as a group. The object of the first cohortative is rosh ("a leader," H7218H), a noun literally meaning "head," used here in the sense of a chief or leader over the group. The second cohortative is completed by mitzraymah ("Egypt," H4714G) with the directional -ah suffix (H9011), which marks the noun as the goal of motion — "toward Egypt" — without needing a separate preposition. The two cohortatives, joined by the conjunction ve- ("and," H9002), form a single coordinated proposal: appointing a leader as the means toward the stated goal of returning to Egypt.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders ish 'el-achiv as heteros tō heterō ("one to the other"), preserving the reciprocal sense without the literal "brother" wording found in the Hebrew construct achiv. The Vulgate similarly uses alter ad alterum ("one to another"), also omitting the term "brother." Both versions render rosh ("head/leader") with terms for leadership (archēgon, ducem) rather than a literal "head," matching the functional sense of the Hebrew noun in this context.