Numbers 27:5

Summary

The verse reports that Moses brought the legal case (or claim) of a group referred to only by a feminine plural suffix ("their") before Yehovah. It is a short narrative notice describing an action of mediation or presentation of a matter for divine judgment.

Key words

• va-yyaqrev ("and he brought near", H7126H) — hiphil (causative) verb with narrative vav; indicates Moses causes something to come near/be presented, continuing the story sequence ("and then he brought near").
• Mosheh ("Moses", H4872) — proper name, subject of the verb; the one performing the action of bringing the case forward.
• mishpat-an ("their case", H4941H + H9029) — masculine singular noun in construct form with a feminine plural pronominal suffix ("their"); the construct state links the noun "case/judgment" to the possessors, and the suffix's feminine gender indicates the group referred to consists of females.
• li-fnei ("before", H6440G) — masculine plural noun in construct governed by the preposition li ("to"), forming the idiomatic phrase "to the face of," i.e., "in the presence of."
• YHWH ("Yehovah", H3068G) — proper divine name, object of the preposition, marking the location/authority before whom the case is presented.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built as a simple narrative chain introduced by the vav on va-yyaqrev, marking this as the next event in sequence: "and Moses brought near." The verb is hiphil, a causative stem, so the action is not merely Moses approaching but Moses causing an object — here mishpat-an, "their case" — to be brought near or presented. The direct object marker 'et (H0853) signals that mishpatan is grammatically the object of the verb, confirming that what is being brought forward is not a person but a legal matter.

The noun mishpat is in construct with the suffix -an ("their," feminine plural), a grammatical link that ties the "case" to a group of females not named within this verse itself but referenced only through the pronoun. The phrase lifnei YHWH uses the construct form of panim ("face") governed by the preposition li, an idiom meaning "in the presence of" or "before," here specifying that the case is presented in the presence of Yehovah, marking the setting as one of formal presentation before divine authority.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders va-yyaqrev... mishpatan as prosēgagen... krisin autōn ("he brought forward their judgment/case"), matching the causative and construct structure of the Hebrew closely. The Vulgate text supplied here ("Qui dixit ad eum," "Who said to him") does not correspond to this Hebrew verse's content and reflects a different textual segment, so no comparison of wording can be made for the Vulgate in this instance.