Numbers 25:15

Summary

The verse identifies the Midianite woman killed in the preceding narrative by name and lineage: she is Cozbi, daughter of Zur. Zur is further identified as a leader within Midianite tribal structure, holding the position of "head" over clans organized by patrilineal descent.

Key words

• mukah ("was struck down", H5221) — hophal passive participle, feminine singular, showing that the woman is grammatically defined by the act done to her (she was the one struck), matching the earlier narrative.
• rosh ("head of", H7218) — masculine singular construct, placing Zur in a governing relationship to what follows; construct state means the noun cannot stand alone but points forward to 'umot.
• 'umot ("tribes/clans", H0523) — feminine plural, the group over which Zur functions as rosh.
• beit 'av ("house of a father", H1004 + H0001) — a construct chain functioning as a technical designation for a patrilineal family unit, distinct from 'umot.
• hu' ("he", H1931) — independent personal pronoun placed at the very end of the clause, resuming and emphasizing the subject (Zur) after the intervening descriptive phrases.

What the text says

The sentence opens with ve-shem ("and the name of", H8034) in construct with ha-'ishah ("the woman", H802), which is itself modified by a stack of three articular elements: ha-mukah ("the one struck down"), and ha-midyanit ("the Midianite"). This chain of definite descriptors identifies the woman before her personal name, Kozbi, is given. The clause then shifts to her patronymic, bat-Tzur ("daughter of Zur"), and pivots to describing Zur's status using two construct chains in sequence: rosh 'umot ("head of tribes") and beit-'av ("house of a father"). These two phrases are not obviously in construct with each other in the Hebrew string as presented; rather they function as parallel or appositional descriptions of Zur's position within Midianite social organization, located "in Midian" (be-Midyan). The final word, hu' ("he", H1931), stands independently at the clause's end, resuming the subject Zur after the intervening genealogical and titular material — a construction that gives grammatical closure and emphasis to the identification.

Differences between versions

The Vulgate adds a descriptive element not present in the Hebrew construct chain, rendering Zur as "principis nobilissimi" ("a most noble prince"), where the Hebrew simply gives rosh 'umot ("head of tribes/clans") without any evaluative adjective. The LXX renders the beit-'av ("house of a father") phrase as "οἴκου πατριᾶς... τῶν Μαδιάν" ("of a house of a family... of the Midianites"), restructuring the relation between the tribal terms and "Midian" differently than the Hebrew's sequence of rosh 'umot, beit-'av, be-Midyan as three separate elements.