Numbers 3:4

Summary

The verse narrates the death of Nadab and Abihu before Yehovah, caused by their offering of "strange fire," and states that because they had no sons, Eleazar and Ithamar served as priests under their father Aaron.

Key words

• va.Yamot ("he died", H4191) — qal narrative verb, grammatically singular though it governs the compound subject Nadab and Abihu.
• hakriva ("brought near", H7126H) — hiphil infinitive construct with pronominal suffix "their," a causative form describing the act of offering.
• zarah ("strange", H2114A) — qal feminine singular participle modifying 'esh ("fire", H0784); a participle describes an ongoing quality, here "foreign/unauthorized" fire.
• banim ("sons", H1121A) — masculine plural noun, paired with negated hayu ("they belonged/were", H1961) to state absence of male offspring.
• penei ("face of", H6440G) — construct noun appearing three times in the verse (twice as lifnei YHWH, once as al-penei Aharon), forming prepositional expressions of presence.

What the text says

The clause opens with the narrative verb va.Yamot ("and he died," H4191) in the singular, even though it has two grammatical subjects, Nadab (H5070G) and Abihu (H0030) — a construction where the verb agrees with the first-named subject before a compound subject follows. Their death is located spatially and relationally by two occurrences of lifnei YHWH ("before Yehovah," H6440G + H3068G), bracketing the description of their action: behakrivam 'esh zarah ("when they brought near strange fire," H7126H + H0784 + H2114A). The hiphil infinitive hakriva marks a causative, deliberate act of offering, and the participle zarah characterizes the fire as being of an unauthorized or foreign kind rather than narrating a single completed event.

The second half of the verse shifts to the consequence for priestly succession. The negated perfect lo' hayu lahem ("sons were not to them," H1121A + H3808 + H1961) states the absence of male heirs using a possessive construction ("to them"), not a verb of birth. The narrative then continues with va.yekhahen ("and he served as priest," H3547, piel narrative), placing Eleazar (H0499G) and Ithamar (H0385) 'al-penei 'Aharon 'avihem ("upon the face of Aaron their father," H5921A + H6440G + H0175 + H0001G), a prepositional phrase built on the same noun penei used earlier for "before Yehovah," here indicating their priestly service occurring in relation to their father.

Differences between versions

The Vulgate's absque liberis ("without children") and the LXX's παιδία ("children") render the Hebrew banim ("sons," H1121A) with broader terms than the specifically male-referring Hebrew noun. The BSB inserts an explicit causal connector ("And since they had no sons, only Eleazar and Ithamar served"), whereas the Hebrew simply chains clauses with the narrative vav without marking causation grammatically. The BSB and RV1909 differ in rendering zarah (H2114A) as "unauthorized" versus "strange," both interpretive glosses for the participial sense of foreignness.