Numbers 21:8

Summary

Yehovah instructs Moses to make a saraph ("saraph", H8314A) and place it on a standard. The verse then states the consequence: anyone bitten who looks at it will live. The Hebrew uses a chain of sequential perfect verbs to link the command to its promised effect.

Key words

• sa.Raf ("a saraph", H8314A) — masculine singular noun, indefinite; the object Moses is told to make.
• 'a.Seh ("make", H6213H) — qal imperative, second person masculine singular; direct command to Moses.
• Nes ("a standard", H5251H) — masculine singular noun, indefinite; the pole or signal-object on which the saraph is mounted.
• na.Shukh ("[one who] is bitten", H5391A) — qal passive participle, masculine singular, with the definite article ha ("the", H9009), functioning as a substantive: "the bitten one" / "whoever is bitten."
• chai ("he will live", H2421) — qal sequential perfect, third person masculine singular; the final link in the chain of consequence.

What the text says

The verse opens with the narrative formula va-yomer Yehovah el-Mosheh ("and Yehovah said to Moses"), a standard introduction to direct speech. The command itself consists of two qal imperatives — 'aseh ("make") and sim ("put") — both second person masculine singular, addressed to Moses. The object of the first imperative is saraph (H8314A), an indefinite masculine noun without further qualifying adjective in this verse; the pronominal suffix -o ("it", H9033) on oto and again on sim...oto refers back to this saraph as the object placed 'al-nes ("on a standard", H5251H).

After the imperatives, the syntax shifts to a sequence of ve- plus perfect verbs (ve-hayah, ve-ra'ah, va-chai) — a common Biblical Hebrew construction where a perfect verb following a vav after an imperative continues the imperative's force as a logical or temporal sequence: "and it will be... and he will see... and he will live." This chain presents three linked stages: the state of being ha-nashukh ("the bitten one", H5391A, a passive participle used substantively for "whoever is bitten"), the act of seeing (ra'ah, H7200G) the object, and the resulting state expressed by chai ("he will live", H2421). The grammar itself encodes a cause-and-result relationship purely through verb sequencing, without any explicit conjunction like "so that" or "in order to."

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the Hebrew saraph (H8314A) as ophin ("serpent"), a more specific term than the Hebrew noun, which does not itself mean "serpent" but is used elsewhere for a type of being; the Vulgate renders it serpentem aeneum ("bronze serpent"), adding the material "bronze" (aeneum), which is not present in this Hebrew verse. The Hebrew nes (H5251H, "standard") is translated by the LXX as sēmeiou ("of a sign/signal") and by the Vulgate as pro signo ("for a sign"), both shifting from a physical standard/pole toward the more abstract sense of "sign."