Numbers 29:40

Summary

This verse closes a section of instructions by stating that Moses transmitted to the Israelites everything Yehovah had commanded him. It functions as a formulaic closing statement confirming that the preceding instructions were delivered exactly as received.

Key words

• va-yomer ("and he said", H0559) — qal narrative verb form, marking this as a sequential narrative action: "and then he said."
• bene ("[the] people of", H1121G) — masculine plural construct noun, linking directly to "Israel" to form the phrase "sons/people of Israel."
• kekhol ("according to all", H3605 with preposition H9004) — the preposition ke- ("according to") attached to khol ("all") establishes a comparison of correspondence: what Moses said matches a totality.
• tzivah ("he had commanded", H6680) — piel perfect verb, indicating a completed, intensive act of command; the piel stem often marks authoritative or official commanding.
• et-Mosheh (" Moses", H0853 + H4872) — the direct object marker et attached to Moses' name identifies him as the recipient of Yehovah's command, distinct from his role as speaker in the first clause.

What the text says

The verse has a two-clause structure. The first clause, va-yomer Mosheh el-bene Yisra'el ("and Moses said to the people of Israel"), places Moses as the subject and the Israelites as the addressees, using the preposition 'el ("to") to mark the direction of speech. The second clause, introduced by kekhol 'asher ("according to all that"), creates a comparative frame: what Moses said corresponds exactly to what follows.

Within this second clause, the verb tzivah ("he had commanded", H6680) appears in the piel perfect, with Yehovah (H3068G) as subject and et-Mosheh as direct object. The use of the direct object marker 'et before Moses' name is grammatically necessary to distinguish him as the object of Yehovah's command, since Hebrew requires this marker for definite direct objects. The perfect tense of tzivah indicates that Yehovah's command was completed prior to Moses' speech to the people — the grammar itself encodes a sequence: command first, then transmission. The relative particle 'asher ("that", H0834A) links the totality (khol) to the content of the command, so the clause reads literally "according to all that Yehovah had commanded Moses," with Moses appearing twice — once as speaker, once as recipient of command — a structural repetition marking him as the mediating figure between Yehovah's directive and the people's reception of it.

Differences between versions

The BSB translation adds "this" ("spoke all this"), an interpretive addition not present as a separate lexical item in the Hebrew text, which reads simply va-yomer ("and he said") without an explicit object like "this." The SBLIBRE similarly reads "le comunicó... todo lo que" ("communicated to them all that"), interpreting va-yomer with an implied direct object. The Hebrew clause itself contains no equivalent word for "this" or "all" as the object of "said" — the kol ("all") in the Hebrew belongs to the second clause (introducing the comparison "according to all that"), not to the first clause as a direct object of "said."