Numbers 15:34

Summary

The verse describes an unnamed man being placed in custody because the appropriate action to take regarding him had not yet been determined. The Hebrew text uses two passive verb forms to convey that a legal decision was pending.

Key words

yaniychu ("they left/placed", H5117) — Hiphil (causative) imperfect with narrative vav, meaning "and they caused [him] to be placed" — a causative action performed by an unspecified plural subject ("they").

mishmar ("custody", H4929) — masculine singular noun, the location or state into which the man was placed, preceded by the preposition ba ("in the").

phorash ("it had been decided", H6567A) — Pual (intensive passive) perfect, third person, indicating a completed passive action: something "had been clarified/decided" — the grammatical subject is not the man but the matter itself (implied "it").

ye'aseh ("will it be done", H6213A) — Niphal (passive) imperfect, expressing an action not yet completed: "what will be done." This verb depends on the interrogative mah ("what", H4100).

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence divides into two clauses joined by ki ("for/because", H3588A). The first clause, va-yanichu oto ba-mishmar ("and they placed him in custody"), uses a Hiphil causative verb with third-person plural subject left unspecified — the text does not name who performs the placing. The direct object marker 'oto explicitly marks "him" as receiving the action.

The second clause explains the reason: ki lo' phorash mah-ye'aseh lo ("for it had not been decided what would be done to him"). This clause contains two passive verbal forms in sequence — the Pual phorash (completed passive: "it had not been clarified") and the Niphal ye'aseh (incomplete passive: "what would be done"). This double passive construction places the grammatical focus on the undetermined legal outcome itself rather than on any specific decision-making agent. The interrogative mah ("what") introduces the content of what remained undecided, functioning as the subject of the embedded question.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders ba-mishmar ("in the custody", H4929) as εἰς φυλακήν ("into a guard/prison"), a comparable but not identical semantic field. The Vulgate uses in carcerem ("into a jail"), reflecting a translational choice toward a more definite carceral space than the Hebrew mishmar, which denotes custody or a watch more broadly. The LXX also shifts the double-passive Hebrew construction (phorash/ye'aseh) into an active verb, συνέκριναν ("they decided/judged"), attributing the undetermined decision to an active plural subject rather than preserving the passive, agentless phrasing of the Hebrew.