Numbers 20:26

Summary

The verse instructs that Aaron's garments be stripped from him and placed on his son Eleazar, and states that Aaron will be gathered and will die there. This is God's command to Moses regarding the transfer of priestly office at Aaron's death on Mount Hor.

Key words

• haf.Shet ("strip off", H6584) — hiphil absolute infinitive; the infinitive absolute construction intensifies the imperative force of the command, emphasizing the completeness of the removal.
• hil.bash.Ta ("you will clothe with", H3847) — hiphil sequential perfect, second person masculine singular; the causative form indicates Moses is the agent who causes Eleazar to be clothed, continuing the narrative sequence begun by the infinitive absolute.
• ye.'a.Sef ("he will be gathered", H0622) — niphal imperfect; the passive/reflexive stem presents Aaron as the one to whom the action of gathering happens, without naming an explicit agent.
• Met ("he will die", H4191) — qal sequential perfect; a simple active verb form that continues the narrative chain after ye.'a.Sef, marking death as the culminating event.
• be.ga.Da ("garments", H0899B) with suffix ve ("his") — masculine plural construct noun with pronominal suffix, specifying the garments as belonging to Aaron before their transfer.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence opens with the infinitive absolute haf.Shet ("strip off", H6584), a grammatical form used here to strengthen the command that follows—functioning almost as an emphatic imperative directed at Moses, though the addressee is not marked by person on the infinitive itself. This is followed by two direct object markers, 'et (H0853), first attaching to 'a.ha.Ron ("Aaron", H0175) and then to be.ga.Da ("garments", H0899B) with the third-person masculine singular suffix "his," clarifying that it is Aaron's garments, not Aaron himself, that are removed—Aaron remains the person acted upon, while the garments are the object transferred.

The narrative then shifts with the sequential perfect hil.bash.Ta ("you will clothe with", H3847), a hiphil form addressed to "you" (masculine singular, presumably Moses), which causes Eleazar to be clothed with those same garments. The construct chain be.N ("son", H1121A) plus suffix "his" identifies Eleazar as Aaron's son, marking the succession explicitly through kinship terminology rather than merely narrative context.

The final clause pairs two verbs describing Aaron's end: ye.'a.Sef ("he will be gathered", H0622), a niphal imperfect that grammatically avoids naming who or what does the gathering, and Met ("he will die", H4191), a qal sequential perfect that follows directly, both located at Sham ("there", H8033G), an adverb pointing to the specific site (Mount Hor, per the broader context of the chapter) without further elaboration in this verse.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders be.ga.Da ("garments", H0899B) as τὴν στολὴν ("the robe," singular) where the Hebrew has a plural noun. The LXX also reorders the sequence, placing Aaron's gathering (προστεθεὶς, "having been added/gathered") before the command "let him die there" (ἀποθανέτω ἐκεῖ), whereas the Hebrew presents ye.'a.Sef and Met as two sequential perfects in the order "he will be gathered and he will die." The Vulgate uses "pater" ("father") in place of the proper name "Aaron" in its first clause (Cumque nudaveris patrem veste sua), diverging from the Hebrew, which repeats the name 'a.ha.Ron (H0175) explicitly at that point.