Numbers 3:10

Summary

The verse instructs that Moses is to appoint Aaron and his sons to their priestly service, that they are to keep/guard their priesthood, and that any unauthorized outsider who approaches will be put to death.

Key words

• tif.Kod ("you will appoint", H6485J) — qal imperfect, 2nd person masculine singular, addressed directly to Moses as the one who commissions Aaron and his sons.
• sha.me.Ru ("they will keep", H8104H) — qal sequential perfect (vav + perfect continuing the imperfect's time frame), shifting subject to Aaron and his sons as the ones who guard the priesthood.
• ke.hu.na.Ta ("priesthood of", H3550) — feminine singular construct noun, bound to the following suffix m ("their"), forming "their priesthood" as the object guarded.
• ha.Zar ("the stranger", H2114A) and ha.Karev ("the approaching", H7131) — two definite adjectives in apposition, together functioning as a noun phrase, "the stranger who approaches," the subject of the final clause.
• yu.Mat ("he will be put to death", H4191) — hophal imperfect, a causative-passive form indicating the outsider is the recipient of an action performed by another agent, not specified in this clause.

What the text says

The clause structure places the objects "Aaron" and "his sons" (each marked by 'Et, H0853, the untranslated direct-object marker) before the verb tif.Kod, a common Hebrew word order for emphasis on the object of appointment. The verb is imperfect, addressed to a single "you" (Moses, from context), instructing a future/ongoing act of appointing.

The narrative vav on sha.me.Ru links this appointment to a consequence: once appointed, "they" (Aaron and sons) will keep ke.hu.na.Tam — literally "the priesthood of them," a construct chain expressing possession of the office. The verb here denotes guarding or maintaining, a nuance shared with other uses of the root H8104 for watching or preserving something entrusted.

The final clause uses two adjectives with definite articles, ha.Zar ha.Karev, literally "the stranger, the approaching one," which together form the subject of yu.Mat. The hophal form indicates the action of putting to death happens to the subject, without naming who executes it — the grammar itself leaves the agent unspecified.

Differences between versions

The LXX adds "over the tent of testimony" and "all things concerning the altar and within the veil," phrases with no counterpart in the Hebrew text given. It also renders ha.Karev ("the approaching") as ὁ ἁπτόμενος ("the one touching"), and ha.Zar ("the stranger") as ἀλλογενὴς ("of another race/foreign-born"). The Vulgate similarly expands the verse with "quibus traditi sunt a filiis Israël" ("to whom they were given by the sons of Israel"), not present in the Hebrew, and specifies "ad ministrandum accesserit" ("who approaches to minister"), adding a purpose clause absent from the Hebrew's simple ha.Karev ("the approaching one").