Numbers 21:18

Summary

The verse is a short poetic fragment describing a well that was dug by leaders and nobles of the people, using an instrument or authority described as mechoqeq and mish'anotam, before the Israelites' itinerary continues from the wilderness to Mattanah.

Key words

• be'er ("a well", H0875) — feminine singular noun placed first in the sentence, marking the well as the topic before any verb appears.
• karu ("they dug", H3738B) with 3fs suffix "it" — second qal perfect verb of digging, parallel to chafaru (H2658) in the first half of the verse, both referring back to be'er.
• nedivei ("nobles of", H5081H) — masculine plural construct form, meaning it must be followed by a noun it modifies; here it links to ha'am ("the people", H5971A/H9009).
• mechoqeq ("a ruler's staff", H2710) — grammatically a piel participle ("the one decreeing/inscribing"), though glossed here as an instrument; the participle form indicates an agent or active role rather than a plain object.
• mish'anotam ("their staffs", H4938B) — feminine plural construct with 3mp suffix "their" (H9028), indicating staffs belonging to a group, paired instrumentally with bimchoqeq.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built as two parallel clauses sharing the same implicit subject, be'er ("well"): "be'er chafaruha sarim" ("a well — the leaders dug it") and "karuha nedivei ha'am" ("the nobles of the people dug it"). Both verbs, chafaru (H2658) and karu (H3738B), are qal perfect forms describing completed digging, and both carry the third-person feminine singular suffix -ha ("it"), referring back to the well named at the start. This repetition with variation — different verbs, different terms for leadership (sarim, "leaders", vs. nedivei ha'am, "nobles of the people") — is a typical feature of Hebrew poetic parallelism.

The phrase bimchoqeq bimish'anotam ("with a mechoqeq, with their staffs") is grammatically ambiguous: mechoqeq (H2710) is a piel participle from a root meaning "to inscribe" or "to decree," so its literal sense is "the one who decrees" (a legislator or authority figure), while the gloss provided renders it concretely as "a ruler's staff." The parallel noun mish'anotam (H4938B), "their staffs," is unambiguously a physical object. The verse thus pairs a participial form of uncertain concrete/abstract meaning with a clearly concrete noun, joined by the preposition bi ("with," H9003) in both cases, suggesting instrumentality.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders sarim and nedivei ha'am as ἄρχοντες ("rulers") and βασιλεῖς ἐθνῶν ("kings of nations"), introducing "nations" not present in the Hebrew. For bimchoqeq bimish'anotam, the LXX has ἐν τῇ βασιλείᾳ αὐτῶν, ἐν τῷ κυριεῦσαι αὐτῶν ("in their kingdom, in their reigning"), an abstract political rendering rather than an instrumental one. The Vulgate translates mechoqeq as "datore legis" ("giver of the law"), following the participial sense "one who decrees," while "et in baculis suis" ("and with their staffs") corresponds to mish'anotam.