Numbers 17:2

דַּבֵּר׀ אֶל־בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל וְקַח מֵֽאִתָּם מַטֶּה מַטֶּה לְבֵית אָב מֵאֵת כָּל־נְשִֽׂיאֵהֶם לְבֵית אֲבֹתָם שְׁנֵים עָשָׂר מַטּוֹת אִישׁ אֶת־שְׁמוֹ תִּכְתֹּב עַל־מַטֵּֽהוּ׃

✦ Hebrew interlinear

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✦ The same verse in five languages

Hebrew

דַּבֵּ֣ר׀ אֶל־בְּנֵ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵ֗ל וְקַ֣ח מֵֽאִתָּ֡ם מַטֶּ֣ה מַטֶּה֩ לְבֵ֨ית אָ֜ב מֵאֵ֤ת כָּל־נְשִֽׂיאֵהֶם֙ לְבֵ֣ית אֲבֹתָ֔ם שְׁנֵ֥ים עָשָׂ֖ר מַטּ֑וֹת אִ֣ישׁ אֶת־שְׁמ֔וֹ תִּכְתֹּ֖ב עַל־מַטֵּֽהוּ׃

Greek (Septuagint)

Λάλησον τοῖς υἱοῖς Ἰσραήλ, καὶ λάβε παρ’ αὐτῶν ῥάβδον, ῥάβδον κατ’ οἴκους πατριῶν πάρα πάντων τῶν ἀρχόντων ἀυτῶν, κατ’ οἴκους πατρίων ἀυτῶν, δώδεκα ῥάβδους· καὶ ἑκάστου τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ ἐπίγραψον ἐπὶ τῆς ῥάβδου.

Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0

Latin (Vulgate)

Loquere ad filios Israël, et accipe ab eis virgas singulas per cognationes suas, a cunctis principibus tribuum, virgas duodecim, et uniuscujusque nomen superscribes virgæ suæ.

Spanish

“Habla a los hijos de Israel y pídeles doce varas, una por cada jefe de sus familias patriarcales. Escribe el nombre de cada uno en su respectiva vara.

Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)

Habla á los hijos de Israel, y toma de ellos una vara por cada casa de los padres, de todos los príncipes de ellos, doce varas conforme á las casas de sus padres; y escribirás el nombre de cada uno sobre su vara.

English

“Speak to the Israelites and take from them twelve staffs, one from the leader of each tribe. Write each man ’s name on his staff,

✦ What the text says

Summary

Moses is instructed to speak to the Israelites and collect one rod from each ancestral house, twelve in total, one per tribal leader, with each man's name to be written on his own rod. The verse sets up the ritual test described in the following verses of Numbers 17.

Key words

da.Ber ("speak", H1696G) — Piel imperative, giving the intensive command that opens the instruction.
ma.Teh ("a rod", H4294G) — appears twice in immediate succession (matteh matteh), a Hebrew distributive construction meaning "a rod for each," rather than a repeated noun for emphasis.
ne.si.'e.hem ("their leaders", H5387A) — plural construct with 3rd person masculine plural suffix "their," identifying the rods as coming from the leader of each ancestral house.
she.Neim 'a.Sar ("two [plus] ten", H8147 + H6240) — the compound cardinal number "twelve," specifying the total count of rods.
tikh.To ("you will write", H3789) — Qal imperfect, expressing a future/ongoing instruction: the act of inscribing each name is to occur after the rods are collected.

What the text says

The sentence chains three verbal commands to Moses: dabber ("speak") to the people, qach ("take") the rods from them, and tikhtov ("you will write") each man's name on his own rod. The doubled noun matteh matteh is a Hebrew idiom for distribution — "rod by rod," meaning one rod is to be taken from each group, here specified as le-veit av ("for the house of a father/ancestor," H1004M + H0001G). The text then reinforces this with a second phrase, le-veit avotam ("to the house of their fathers," H1004M + H0001G plural), pairing singular and plural forms of the same ancestral-house concept before stating the total: shenayim asar mattot ("twelve rods").

The closing clause uses ish ("each," H0376I) with the direct object marker et before shemo ("his name," H8034 + suffix), followed by the verb tikhtov placed at the end of the clause — a common Hebrew word order where the verb of writing closes the instruction after specifying subject and object.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew's doubled matteh matteh ("a rod, a rod") is preserved in the LXX as ῥάβδον, ῥάβδον, maintaining the distributive repetition. The Vulgate instead uses virgas singulas ("individual rods"), a single expression conveying the same distributive sense without repeating the noun. The BSB and SBLIBRE translations similarly collapse the repetition, rendering it as "one from the leader of each tribe" or "una por cada jefe," integrating the distributive meaning into a single clause rather than reflecting the doubled Hebrew form.

This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.