Numbers 27:4

Summary

The verse records the daughters of Zelophehad asking Moses why their father's name should disappear from his clan simply because he had no son, and requesting that they be granted a landed possession among their father's brothers. The sentence combines a rhetorical question with a direct imperative request.

Key words

• lamah (from la H9005 + mah H4100, "why?") — introduces a rhetorical question expressing objection or protest, framing the whole first clause as a challenge rather than a simple query.
• yigga'ra ("will it be withdrawn/diminished", H1639) — niphal imperfect: the passive/reflexive stem removes the agent, so the "name" is the grammatical subject undergoing removal, without specifying who would remove it.
• shem ("name of", H8034) — masculine singular construct, linked to 'avinu ("our father"), forming the phrase "the name of our father," the subject at risk of disappearing.
• tenah ("give!", H5414G) — qal imperative second masculine singular with a paragogic he ending, which adds emphatic or urgent force to the command directed at Moses.
• 'achuzah ("a possession", H0272) — feminine singular noun denoting a landed inheritance, the specific object being requested.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built in two parts. The first is a rhetorical question opened by lamah ("why?"), followed by the niphal imperfect verb yigga'ra, whose passive form allows the daughters to speak of the "diminishing" of their father's name without naming an agent — the removal is presented as a looming state of affairs rather than an action attributed to a specific party. The construct chain shem-'avinu ("name of our father") is the grammatical subject of this passive verb, and the phrase mitokh mishpachto ("from the midst of his clan") specifies the social group from which the name would vanish. The causal clause ki 'ein lo ben ("for he had no son") uses the existential negation 'ein with the possessive construction lo ("to him") plus ben ("son") to state the underlying legal problem in a compact, non-verbal clause typical of Biblical Hebrew.

The second part shifts from question to command: tenah-lanu 'achuzah ("give to us a possession"), using the imperative with paragogic he, a form that intensifies the appeal. The final phrase betokh 'achei 'avinu ("among the brothers of our father") locates the requested inheritance within the kinship group, paralleling the earlier mitokh mishpachto.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the Hebrew rhetorical question as a negative imperative/wish, mē exaleiphthētō ("let it not be blotted out"), turning the interrogative-passive construction of yigga'ra into a direct plea rather than a question. The Vulgate text supplied here (Retulitque Moyses causam earum ad judicium Domini, "And Moses brought their case to the judgment of the LORD") corresponds to the content of Numbers 27:5, not to this verse, so no Vulgate rendering of 27:4 itself is available in the data given.