Numbers 17:6

וַיְדַבֵּר מֹשֶׁה אֶל־בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל וַיִּתְּנוּ אֵלָיו׀ כָּֽל־נְשִֽׂיאֵיהֶם מַטֶּה לְנָשִׂיא אֶחָד מַטֶּה לְנָשִׂיא אֶחָד לְבֵית אֲבֹתָם שְׁנֵים עָשָׂר מַטּוֹת וּמַטֵּה אַהֲרֹן בְּתוֹךְ מַטּוֹתָֽם׃

✦ Hebrew interlinear

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✦ The same verse in five languages

Hebrew

וַיְדַבֵּ֨ר מֹשֶׁ֜ה אֶל־בְּנֵ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵ֗ל וַיִּתְּנ֣וּ אֵלָ֣יו׀ כָּֽל־נְשִֽׂיאֵיהֶ֡ם מַטֶּה֩ לְנָשִׂ֨יא אֶחָ֜ד מַטֶּ֨ה לְנָשִׂ֤יא אֶחָד֙ לְבֵ֣ית אֲבֹתָ֔ם שְׁנֵ֥ים עָשָׂ֖ר מַטּ֑וֹת וּמַטֵּ֥ה אַהֲרֹ֖ן בְּת֥וֹךְ מַטּוֹתָֽם׃

Greek (Septuagint)

καὶ ἐλάλησεν Μωυσῆς τοῖς υἱοῖς Ἰσραήλ, καὶ ἔδωκαν αὐτῶ πάντες οἱ ἄρχοντες αὐτῶν ῥάβδον, τῷ ἄρχοντι τῶ ἑνὶ ῥάβδον κατὰ ἄρχοντα, κατ’ οἴκους πατριῶν αὐτῶν, ιβ ῥάβδους· κοὶ ἡ ῥάβδος Ἀαρὼν ἀνὰ μέσον τῶν ῥάβδων αὐτῶν·

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

Latin (Vulgate)

Locutusque est Moyses ad filios Israël: et dederunt ei omnes principes virgas per singulas tribus: fueruntque virgæ duodecim absque virga Aaron.

Spanish

Moisés habló con los hijos de Israel, y todos sus líderes le entregaron varas, una por cada jefe de familia, siendo doce varas en total. La vara de Aarón estaba entre ellas.

Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)

Y Moisés habló á los hijos de Israel, y todos los príncipes de ellos le dieron varas; cada príncipe por las casas de sus padres una vara, en todas doce varas; y la vara de Aarón estaba entre las varas de ellos.

English

So Moses spoke to the Israelites, and each of their leaders gave him a staff— one for each of the leaders of their tribes, twelve staffs in all. And Aaron’s staff was among them.

✦ What the text says

Summary

Moses speaks to the Israelites, and the leaders of each tribe give him a rod, one per leader according to their ancestral house, twelve rods in total. Aaron's rod is placed among these rods.

Key words

y.da.Ber ("he spoke", H1696G) — piel narrative form; the intensive stem marks Moses' act of speaking as a formal address rather than casual talk.
yitenu ("they gave", H5414G) — qal narrative form (3rd person masculine plural), continuing the sequence of actions after Moses' speech: he spoke, then they gave.
nasi echad ("a leader", "one", H5387A + H0259) — repeated twice (lines 16-17, 20-21) in a distributive construction, "a rod for one leader, a rod for one leader," emphasizing the one-to-one correspondence between rod and tribal head.
beit avotam ("house of their ancestors", H1004M + H0001G) — construct chain with pronominal suffix, identifying each rod as representing not just an individual leader but his entire ancestral house.
betokh matotam ("among their rods", H8432 + H4294G) — construct noun with suffix, placing Aaron's rod spatially within the collection belonging to the other leaders.

What the text says

The verse opens with two narrative-vav clauses in sequence: Moses speaks (yedabber) to the sons of Israel, and then they give (yitenu) to him. This vav-consecutive chain marks straightforward temporal succession — first the speech, then the response. The core of the verse is a distributive construction built by repeating mateh ("a rod", H4294G) paired with nasi echad ("one leader") twice in parallel: "a rod for one leader, a rod for one leader, for the house of their fathers." This repetition functions grammatically like an English "one each," assigning a single rod to each tribal head according to his ancestral house (beit avotam), rather than describing two separate actions.

The total is then stated as shenayim asar matot ("twelve rods", H8147 + H6240 + H4294G), a cardinal number construction. The final clause adds Aaron's rod (mateh Aharon) with the preposition be- ("in") plus the construct noun tokh ("among", H8432) governing matotam ("their rods"). The construct phrase betokh matotam locates Aaron's rod spatially within the set already gathered from the twelve leaders, without a separate verb — the clause is nominal, stating a location rather than a new action.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew states that Aaron's rod was "among their rods" (betokh matotam), which the LXX renders identically as ῥάβδος Ἀαρὼν ἀνὰ μέσον τῶν ῥάβδων αὐτῶν ("Aaron's rod in the midst of their rods"). The Vulgate, however, renders this as "fueruntque virgae duodecim absque virga Aaron" ("and there were twelve rods, besides Aaron's rod"), which describes Aaron's rod as separate from the twelve rather than placed among them, differing from the spatial inclusion expressed by the Hebrew betokh and the LXX's ἀνὰ μέσον.

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