Numbers 20:15

Summary

The verse recounts, in first-person plural narrative, how the ancestors of the speakers went down to Egypt, dwelt there many days, and how the Egyptians did harm to both "us" and "our ancestors." This is part of the message Israel sends to the king of Edom recalling their communal history.

Key words

• yeredu ("they went down", H3381) — qal narrative verb, third person masculine plural, marking the sequential action of descent into Egypt.
• avoteinu ("our ancestors", H1G + H9025) — feminine plural construct noun with first-person plural suffix; note the noun form is grammatically feminine plural though referring to male ancestors, a common pattern for this collective term.
• nnēshev ("we dwelt", H3427) — qal narrative verb, first person plural, shifting the narration from "they" (the ancestors) to "we," rhetorically merging speaker and ancestors into one continuous subject.
• yamim rabbim ("many days", H3117 + H7227) — noun plus adjective, both masculine plural, indicating extended duration without a specific number.
• yare'u ("they did harm", H7489) — hiphil narrative verb, third person masculine plural; the hiphil (causative) stem intensifies the verb to mean "caused harm/mistreated" rather than a simple "were bad."

What the text says

The verse is built as a chain of narrative vav-forms (va-yeredu, va-nnēshev, va-yare'u), each introduced by the narrative vav (H9001), which links the clauses sequentially as a continuous historical account: "and they went down... and we dwelt... and they did harm." This grammatical chaining creates a single flowing narrative rather than isolated statements.

A notable grammatical feature is the shift in verbal person: the first verb yeredu ("they went down") is third person, referring to "our ancestors" (avoteinu), while the second verb nnēshev ("we dwelt") shifts to first person plural. The Hebrew grammar itself performs a rhetorical merging of the ancestors' experience with that of the present speakers — the group speaking treats itself as a continuation of the ancestors who went to Egypt. The hiphil verb yare'u ("they did harm") specifies causative action by the Egyptians (mitzrayim, H4713) against both "us" (lanu, H9005+H9035) and "our ancestors" (la-avoteinu, H9005+H1G+H9025), each object marked by the preposition la- ("to/against").

Differences between versions

The LXX renders mitzrayim (the Egyptians as subject of harm) explicitly as "οἱ Αἰγύπτιοι" ("the Egyptians," a plural noun for the people), while the Hebrew uses the place-name mitzrayim (H4713) itself as the grammatical subject performing the harming action, a metonymy where the land/nation name stands for its inhabitants. The Vulgate similarly specifies "Aegyptii" ("the Egyptians") as subject, matching the LXX's explicit personification rather than the Hebrew's place-name-as-subject construction.