Numbers 3:21
לְגֵרְשׁוֹן מִשְׁפַּחַת הַלִּבְנִי וּמִשְׁפַּחַת הַשִּׁמְעִי אֵלֶּה הֵם מִשְׁפְּחֹת הַגֵּרְשֻׁנִּֽי׃
✦ Hebrew interlinear
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✦ The same verse in five languages
לְגֵ֣רְשׁ֔וֹן מִשְׁפַּ֙חַת֙ הַלִּבְנִ֔י וּמִשְׁפַּ֖חַת הַשִּׁמְעִ֑י אֵ֣לֶּה הֵ֔ם מִשְׁפְּחֹ֖ת הַגֵּרְשֻׁנִּֽי׃
Τῷ Γεδσὼν δῆμος τοῦ Λοβενεὶ καὶ δῆμος τοῦ Σεμεεί· οὗτοι δῆμοι τοῦ Γεδσών.
Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0
Latin (Vulgate)
De Gerson fuere familiæ duæ, Lebnitica, et Semeitica:
De Gersón era la familia de los libnitas y la familia de los simeítas. Estas son las familias de los gersonitas.
Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)
De Gersón, la familia de Libni y la de Simei: estas son las familias de Gersón.
From Gershon came the Libnite clan and the Shimeite clan; these were the Gershonite clans.
✦ What the text says
Summary
The verse identifies the two clans descended from Gershon: the Libnites and the Shimeites, and closes by naming these together as "the Gershonite clans." The sentence has a listing structure followed by a summary statement.
Key words
- Ge.re.Shon ("Gershon", H1648) — proper name preceded by the preposition le ("to/belonging to", H9005), marking possession: the clans described belong to Gershon.
- mish.Pa.chat ("clan of", H4940) — feminine singular construct form, used twice (positions 3 and 7) to introduce each named group in a construct chain with the following gentilic.
- liv.Ni ("Libnite", H3846) — gentilic noun with the definite article ha (H9009), designating the descent-group named after Libni.
- shim.'I ("Shimeite", H8097) — gentilic noun, also with the article, paired structurally with liv.Ni as the second clan name.
- ge.re.shu.Ni ("Gershonite", H1649) — gentilic form of Gershon's name, distinct from the proper name Ge.re.Shon itself, used in the summary construct phrase mish.pe.Chot ha.ge.re.shu.Ni ("clans of the Gershonite[s]").
What the text says
The verse opens with le.Ge.re.Shon ("to Gershon"), a prepositional phrase establishing possession before any verb appears — the clans that follow are grammatically attached to Gershon from the outset. Two construct phrases follow, each built as mish.Pa.chat + definite gentilic: mishpachat ha-Livni ("clan of the Libnite") and, joined by the conjunction u ("and", H9002), mishpachat ha-Shim'i ("clan of the Shimeite"). Both gentilics carry the definite article, treating "the Libnite" and "the Shimeite" as established group-designations rather than individual names.
The second half of the verse shifts to a nominal summary clause: 'Elleh hem mishpechot ha-Gershuni ("these, they, [are] the clans of the Gershonite"). Here mishpechot appears in the plural construct form (H4940), differing from the singular construct used twice earlier for each individual clan — the plural form gathers both previously named clans under one collective heading. Notably, the gentilic used in this closing phrase, ha-Ge.re.shu.Ni (H1649), is morphologically distinct from the proper name Ge.re.Shon (H1648) used at the verse's start: the text moves from naming the ancestor to naming the group affiliation derived from him.
Differences between versions
The LXX renders the construct chains with Greek dēmos ("people/district") governing genitive forms of transliterated names (Lobenei, Semeeí), a structure paralleling the Hebrew construct but using a Greek administrative term rather than a kinship term equivalent to mishpachah. The Vulgate renders the two clan names as adjectival forms, Lebnitica and Semeitica, describing them as "families" (familiae) — a syntactic recasting where the Hebrew construct chain becomes an adjective-noun pairing in Latin.
This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.