Numbers 25:5

Summary

Moses addresses the judges of Israel and issues a command: each judge is to kill the men under his authority who have attached themselves to Baal Peor. The command follows the preceding narrative context of Israelite involvement with Baal Peor worship.

Key words

• va.Yomer ("he said", H0559) — qal narrative form with the vav-conversive prefix, marking this as the next event in the story sequence ("and he said").
• sho.fe.Tei ("judges of", H8199) — qal participle, masculine plural, construct state; identifies Moses's addressees as those who exercise judgment/authority, grammatically linked to "Israel" as the group they judge.
• hir.Gu ("kill", H2026) — qal imperative, masculine plural; a direct command addressed to the judges collectively ("you all").
• 'ish...'a.na.Sha ("everyone...men of", H0376I / H0582) — 'ish functions distributively ("each one"), followed by 'anashav ("his men"), a masculine plural construct with the third-person suffix "his," indicating that each judge acts upon the men under his own charge.
• nitz.ma.Dim ("have joined themselves", H6775) — niphal participle, masculine plural; the niphal stem conveys a reflexive or passive sense, describing the men as having bound or attached themselves to Baal Peor.

What the text says

The verse opens with the narrative vav construction va.Yomer, tying this speech directly to the preceding events. Moses speaks 'el- ("to") the sho.fe.Tei Yisra'el, the "judges of Israel," a construct phrase where "judges" is grammatically bound to "Israel," specifying whose judges they are. The command itself, hir.Gu ("kill"), is a plural imperative, showing that Moses addresses multiple judges simultaneously, each expected to act.

The phrase 'ish 'anashav uses 'ish in a distributive sense — "each man" or "each one" — governing 'anashav, "his men," a construct plural with a third-person masculine singular suffix. This grammar assigns responsibility individually: each judge is to deal with the men under his own authority, not a shared or collective group. The following participle ha-nitzmadim, from the niphal stem of tzamad, describes these men as having "joined themselves" to Ba'al Pe'or — the niphal form implying that the attachment was something the men brought upon themselves, rather than something done to them externally.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders sho.fe.Tei Yisra'el ("judges of Israel") as ταῖς φυλαῖς Ἰσραήλ, "the tribes of Israel," differing from the Hebrew's reference to judicial officials. The Vulgate follows the Hebrew more closely with ad judices Israël, "to the judges of Israel." The LXX also renders the command as an aorist imperative directed to individuals (Ἀποκτείνατε ἕκαστος), preserving the distributive sense of 'ish found in the Hebrew, similarly to the Vulgate's occidat unusquisque.