Numbers 20:11
וַיָּרֶם מֹשֶׁה אֶת־יָדוֹ וַיַּךְ אֶת־הַסֶּלַע בְּמַטֵּהוּ פַּעֲמָיִם וַיֵּצְאוּ מַיִם רַבִּים וַתֵּשְׁתְּ הָעֵדָה וּבְעִירָֽם׃ ס
✦ Hebrew interlinear
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✦ The same verse in five languages
וַיָּ֨רֶם מֹשֶׁ֜ה אֶת־יָד֗וֹ וַיַּ֧ךְ אֶת־הַסֶּ֛לַע בְּמַטֵּ֖הוּ פַּעֲמָ֑יִם וַיֵּצְאוּ֙ מַ֣יִם רַבִּ֔ים וַתֵּ֥שְׁתְּ הָעֵדָ֖ה וּבְעִירָֽם׃ ס
καὶ ἐπάρας Μωυσῆς τὴν χεῖρα αὐτοῦ ἐπάταξεν τὴν πέτραν τῇ ῥάβδῳ δίς, καὶ ἐξῆλθεν ὕδωρ πολύ, καὶ ἔπιεν ἡ συναγωγὴ καὶ τὰ κτήνη αὐτῶν.
Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0
Latin (Vulgate)
Cumque elevasset Moyses manum, percutiens virga bis silicem, egressæ sunt aquæ largissimæ, ita ut populus biberet et jumenta.
Enseguida Moisés levantó la mano, golpeó la roca dos veces con su vara, y brotó agua en abundancia. Así pudieron beber la comunidad y su ganado.
Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)
Entonces alzó Moisés su mano, é hirió la peña con su vara dos veces: y salieron muchas aguas, y bebió la congregación, y sus bestias.
Then Moses raised his hand and struck the rock twice with his staff, so that a great amount of water gushed out, and the congregation and their livestock were able to drink.
✦ What the text says
Summary
Moses raises his hand and strikes the rock with his staff twice; abundant water comes out, and the congregation together with their livestock drink from it. The sentence is a chain of narrative actions describing a single sequence of events at the rock.
Key words
- va-yakh ("and he struck", H5221) — hiphil narrative verb, causative form indicating Moses caused the striking action against the rock.
- ha-sela' ("the rock", H5553H) — masculine singular noun with definite article, marked as direct object by 'et, the target of the striking.
- pa'amayim ("two times", H6471) — feminine dual noun, specifying the number of strikes as exactly two.
- va-yetze'u ("and they came out", H3318L) — qal narrative verb, plural subject (mayim, "waters"), marking the result of the striking.
- va-teshet ("and it drank", H8354) — qal narrative verb with feminine singular subject (ha-'edah, "the congregation"), grammatically singular though referring to a collective group.
What the text says
The verse is built as a chain of five narrative verbs (va-yarem, va-yakh, va-yetze'u, va-teshet), each introduced by the narrative vav (H9001), presenting the events as a sequential chain: Moses raised, struck, waters came out, the congregation drank. Both va-yarem ("he raised", H7311A) and va-yakh ("he struck", H5221) are hiphil forms, marking Moses as the causative agent of both actions — he causes his hand to rise and causes the rock to be struck.
The object ha-sela' ("the rock", H5553H) is marked with the direct object particle 'et (H0853), and the instrument is expressed separately through the prepositional phrase be-matte-hu ("with his rod", H4294G + H9023), meaning "rod" in construct with the possessive suffix "his." The dual noun pa'amayim ("two times", H6471) quantifies the strikes without an accompanying numeral word, since Hebrew dual morphology itself encodes "twice."
The final clause uses va-teshet ("it drank", H8354), a feminine singular verb agreeing with ha-'edah ("the congregation", H5712), a feminine singular collective noun, even though the drinking involves the whole community and, via the coordinated noun be'iram ("their livestock", H1165 + H9028), their animals as well. The single verb form covers both subjects joined by u- ("and", H9002).
Differences between versions
The LXX renders pa'amayim ("two times", H6471) as δίς ("twice"), matching the Hebrew dual sense with an adverb rather than a noun form. The Vulgate similarly uses bis ("twice"). Both versions preserve the double-striking detail present in the Hebrew dual, though neither retains the grammatical dual morphology itself, which is a feature specific to Hebrew noun inflection.
This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.