Numbers 18:4

Summary

Numbers 18:4 describes how certain individuals (the Levites, per context) will attach themselves to the addressee (Aaron, in the surrounding chapter) and take on the responsibility of the Tent of Meeting's service, while anyone classified as a "stranger" is barred from approaching.

Key words

• nil.Vu ("they will join themselves", H3867A) — niphal (passive/reflexive) verb, sequential perfect; the niphal stem indicates the subject undergoes or performs the joining upon themselves, not that they are joined by an external agent.
• sha.me.Ru ("they will keep", H8104H) — qal sequential perfect; a straightforward active verb of guarding/keeping, paired grammatically with nilvu to form a two-part sequence: joining, then keeping.
• mish.Me.ret ("duty of", H4931) — feminine singular construct noun; construct form links it directly to 'Ohel Mo'ed ("Tent of Meeting"), producing "duty of the Tent of Meeting."
• 'a.vo.Dat ("service of", H5656H) — feminine singular construct noun; again a construct chain, "service of the tent," parallel in structure to mishmeret 'ohel mo'ed.
• Zar ("a stranger", H2114A) — masculine singular adjective; functions substantively as "a stranger/outsider," subject of the negated verb yik.Rav ("he will draw near", H7126G, qal imperfect).

What the text says

The verse is built on two sequential perfect verbs — nilvu ("they will join themselves") and shamru ("they will keep") — both continuing a narrative chain begun by the vav-prefix (H9001). The niphal form of nilvu is significant: it frames the joining as something the subject undergoes or does to themselves, distinct from a qal active "to join," though English translations render it simply as "join."

The object of shamru is expressed through a double construct chain: mishmeret 'ohel mo'ed ("duty of the Tent of Meeting") and, following the preposition le ("to," H9005), kol 'avodat ha'ohel ("all the service of the tent"). Both mishmeret and 'avodat are construct nouns, meaning their sense depends entirely on what follows — "duty of X" and "service of X" — a Hebrew syntactic feature that stacks nouns together without a linking verb, unlike the English "the duty of the Tent of Meeting."

The final clause pivots with the conjunction ve (H9002, here simply "and," distinct from the narrative vav in H9001) introducing zar ("a stranger," H2114A), an adjective used substantively as the subject of a negated qal imperfect verb, lo' yiqrav ("he will not draw near"). The imperfect aspect marks this as an ongoing or general prohibition rather than a single past event.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders zar ("a stranger", H2114A) as ἀλλογενής ("one of another race/foreign-born"), a term with ethnic connotations not explicit in the Hebrew adjective, which more broadly denotes an outsider to the specified group. The Vulgate's alienigena ("foreign-born") parallels the LXX's ethnic framing. The Hebrew zar itself does not specify foreignness of origin, only exclusion from the group addressed.