Numbers 25:12

Summary

Numbers 25:12 records a divine command to announce that a covenant is being granted. The speaker (identified in the wider context as the one addressed) is told to declare that "peace" is being given as this covenant, using a Hebrew construction that marks the action as imminent or currently underway.

Key words

• laken ("therefore", H3651C) — adverb marking the verse as a consequence of what precedes it, introducing the divine directive.
• 'emor ("say", H0559) — qal imperative, second person masculine singular, a direct command to speak.
• hineni (from hen, H2005 + suffix ni, H9040) — interjection with attached first-person pronoun, "here I am" / "behold me," used to introduce an action about to happen.
• noten ("giving", H5414G) — qal participle, masculine singular; paired with hineni it forms a periphrastic construction expressing an action in progress or about to occur, rendered here as "[am] about to give."
• beriti ("my covenant", H1285) — feminine singular noun in construct form with a first-person suffix, "covenant of me" / "my covenant."

What the text says

The sentence opens with laken ("therefore") plus the imperative 'emor ("say"), instructing the addressee to relay a message. The message itself begins with hineni, literally "behold-me," a fixed Hebrew idiom that when followed by a participle — here noten ("giving") — signals an action either underway or on the point of happening, hence the translation "I am about to give" or "I am giving."

The object of the giving is introduced by the direct object marker 'et (H0853, untranslated) and consists of beriti ("my covenant") followed by shalom ("peace", H7965G). Grammatically, beriti is marked as a construct noun ("covenant of...") but already carries the first-person suffix "my," so shalom stands appositionally after it rather than in a strict construct chain — the Hebrew phrase reads literally "my covenant, peace" or "my covenant of peace," with shalom specifying the content or nature of the covenant being granted to the third party marked by the pronominal suffix on lo ("to him", H9033).

Differences between versions

The Hebrew sequence places beriti ("my covenant") before shalom ("peace"), and the LXX follows this order with διαθήκην εἰρήνης ("covenant of peace"), treating "peace" as a genitive modifying "covenant." The Vulgate reverses the head noun: pacem foederis mei ("peace of my covenant"), making "peace" the object being given and "my covenant" the genitive modifier — the opposite grammatical relationship from the Hebrew and LXX phrasing, though the overall content conveyed (a covenant associated with peace) is comparable across all three.