Numbers 25:4

Summary

Yehovah instructs Moses to take all the leaders of the people and have them impaled/executed before Yehovah, in full view of the sun, so that the burning anger of Yehovah may turn away from Israel. The command follows the narrative pattern typical of divine speech to Moses (va-yomer, "and he said").

Key words

• qach ("take", H3947) — qal imperative, a direct command addressed to Moses (singular "you").
• ra'shei ("[the] leaders of", H7218) — masculine plural construct, syntactically bound to ha'am ("the people"), forming "leaders of the people."
• hoqa' ("impale", H3363) — hiphil (causative) imperative; the causative stem indicates Moses is to cause this action to happen, not necessarily perform it himself.
• neged ("before", H5048) — construct form governing ha-shamesh ("the sun"), literally "in front of/facing the sun," specifying the public, visible location of the act.
• yashov ("may it turn away", H7725) — qal jussive, expressing a wished-for or resulting consequence: "so that it may turn away," governing charon af Yehovah ("the burning of the anger of Yehovah").

What the text says

The verse opens with the standard narrative formula va-yomer Yehovah el-Mosheh ("and Yehovah said to Moses"), introducing direct divine speech. The command itself consists of two imperatives in sequence: qach ("take") governing the object phrase kol ra'shei ha'am ("all the leaders of the people," H3605 + H7218 + H5971), followed by ve-hoqa' 'otam ("and impale them," H3363 + suffix H9038). The hiphil stem of hoqa' marks Moses as the one commanded to bring about the execution, though grammatically it does not specify whether he performs it personally or delegates it.

The location of the act is doubly marked: la-Yehovah ("to/for Yehovah," H3068 with prefixed preposition H9005) and neged ha-shamesh ("before the sun," H5048 + H8121), indicating both a dedicatory/judicial dimension and public visibility.

The final clause is a purpose/result clause introduced by the jussive yashov ("let it turn away," H7725), with charon af Yehovah ("the burning of the anger of Yehovah," H2740 + H0639 construct chain) as its subject, and mi-Yisra'el ("from Israel," H3478) marking the direction of removal.

Differences between versions

The Vulgate adds a detail absent from the Hebrew: in patibulis ("on gibbets/gallows"), specifying an instrument of execution not stated by the Hebrew hoqa'. It also renders the final clause as furor meus ("my fury"), keeping the first-person voice of Yehovah's direct speech, whereas the Hebrew and LXX use the third-person construct phrase "the anger of Yehovah." The Septuagint text provided shows an irregular verbal form (παρααὐτοὺς) where a verb corresponding to hoqa' would be expected, making its rendering of "impale" unclear from the data given.