Numbers 17:9
וַיֹּצֵא מֹשֶׁה אֶת־כָּל־הַמַּטֹּת מִלִּפְנֵי יְהוָה אֶֽל־כָּל־בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל וַיִּרְאוּ וַיִּקְחוּ אִישׁ מַטֵּֽהוּ׃ ס
✦ Hebrew interlinear
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✦ The same verse in five languages
וַיֹּצֵ֨א מֹשֶׁ֤ה אֶת־כָּל־הַמַּטֹּת֙ מִלִּפְנֵ֣י יְהוָ֔ה אֶֽל־כָּל־בְּנֵ֖י יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל וַיִּרְא֥וּ וַיִּקְח֖וּ אִ֥ישׁ מַטֵּֽהוּ׃ ס
καὶ ἐξήνεγκεν Μωυσῆς πάσας τὰς ῥάβδους ἀπὸ προσώπου κυρίου πρὸς πάντας υἱοὺς Ἰσραήλ. καὶ εἶδον, καὶ ἔλαβεν ἕκαστος τὴν ῥάβδον αὐτοῦ.
Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0
Latin (Vulgate)
Protulit ergo Moyses omnes virgas de conspectu Domini ad cunctos filios Israël: videruntque, et receperunt singuli virgas suas.
Entonces Moisés sacó todas las varas de la presencia de Yehová y se las mostró a todos los hijos de Israel. Ellos las vieron, y cada hombre tomó su propia vara.
Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)
Entonces sacó Moisés todas las varas de delante de Jehová á todos los hijos de Israel; y ellos lo vieron, y tomaron cada uno su vara.
Then Moses brought out all the staffs from the LORD ’s presence to all the Israelites. They saw them, and each man took his own staff.
✦ What the text says
Summary
Numbers 17:9 describes Moses bringing out all the staffs from before Yehovah's presence to the Israelites. The people then look at the staffs, and each man takes his own staff back.
Key words
- va-yotze ("and he brought out", H3318H) — hiphil causative verb with narrative vav, indicating Moses actively caused the rods to come out (not that they moved on their own).
- mi-li-fnei ("from before", H6440G with prepositions H9006/H9005) — a double preposition construction meaning "from the presence/face of," describing the specific location the rods were removed from.
- Yehovah ("Yehovah", H3068G) — the divine name marking the location as sacred space, the place where the rods had been placed.
- va-yir'u ("and they saw", H7200G) — qal narrative verb, third person plural, describing the collective visual perception of the people.
- ish matte-hu ("each one his rod", H0376I + H4294G + H9023) — the noun ish ("each one") combined with matteh ("rod") in construct form plus the third-person possessive suffix -hu ("his"), emphasizing individual ownership and retrieval.
What the text says
The verse is built on a chain of four narrative verbs connected by the vav consecutive (va-): yotze ("he brought out"), yir'u ("they saw"), and yiqchu ("they took"), each marked as "narrative" grammar, meaning they form a sequential chain of actions — first Moses brings out the rods, then the people see, then each man takes.
The phrase mi-li-fnei Yehovah uses two stacked prepositions (min "from" + li "to," here functioning together as "from before") attached to fnei ("face/presence of," construct plural), specifying that the rods are being removed from a location described as "the presence of Yehovah." The direct object marker 'et (H0853) before "all the rods" grammatically marks the rods as the object being brought out, though it is not translated into English.
The final clause, ish matte-hu, uses ish ("each one," H0376I) as a distributive marker with matteh ("rod," construct form) plus the suffix -hu ("his"), producing the sense "each man his own rod" — grammatically emphasizing that each staff returns specifically to its original owner.
Differences between versions
The Hebrew text has only three narrative verbs before the final clause: yotze ("brought out"), yir'u ("they saw"), yiqchu ("they took"). The LXX follows a similar structure with ἐξήνεγκεν ("he brought out"), εἶδον ("they saw"), ἔλαβεν ("he took," singular). The SBLIBRE Spanish translation adds "se las mostró" ("he showed them to them"), an interpretive expansion not present in the Hebrew, LXX, or Vulgate, which do not contain a verb of showing — only "brought out" and "saw."
This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.