Numbers 31:12

Summary

The verse reports that the Israelites who fought against Midian brought the captives, the booty, and the plunder to Moses, to Eleazar the priest, and to the congregation of Israel, at the camp located in the plains of Moab, by the Jordan across from Jericho.

Key words

• va-yavi'u ("and they brought", H0935P) — hiphil (causative) verb with narrative vav, indicating a completed action that follows sequentially in the story: "and then they caused [these things] to come."
• 'adat ("congregation of", H5712) — feminine singular noun in construct state, linking directly to bnei Yisra'el ("sons of Israel") to form "congregation of the sons of Israel."
• ha-shevi ("the captive[s]", H7628A) — masculine singular noun with definite article, marked by the object marker 'et, one of three items being brought.
• ha-malqoach ("booty", H4455A) and ha-shalal ("plunder", H7998) — both masculine singular nouns with definite article and object marker, listed alongside ha-shevi as the three categories of what was brought.
• 'asher ("which", H0834A) — relative particle introducing a clause that locates "the plains of Moab" relative to the Jordan facing Jericho.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built around a single main verb, va-yavi'u ("and they brought", H0935P), in the hiphil causative stem with narrative vav, which continues the sequence of prior narrated events. The subject of this verb is left grammatically implicit (the unnamed "they" — the fighting men referred to earlier in the chapter), while three recipients are marked in series with the preposition 'el ("to", H0413): Moses, Eleazar the priest, and the congregation of the sons of Israel. Each recipient is joined by the conjunction ve- ("and", H9002), producing a triple destination for the action.

The three objects being brought are each introduced by the direct object marker 'et (H0853, untranslated) and each carries the definite article: ha-shevi ("the captives", H7628A), ha-malqoach ("the booty", H4455A), and ha-shalal ("the plunder", H7998). These three terms are distinguished from one another as separate categories in the Hebrew list, even though they may overlap in meaning (captives as people, booty and plunder as goods).

The final portion of the verse specifies location through a chain of prepositional phrases beginning with 'el ("to"): to the camp, to the plains of Moab, which ('asher, H0834A) is upon ('al, H5921A) the Jordan of Jericho. This creates a nested geographic description, narrowing from "camp" to "plains of Moab" to the specific position "by the Jordan of Jericho."

Differences between versions

The Hebrew names three distinct objects brought — ha-shevi ("the captives"), ha-malqoach ("the booty"), and ha-shalal ("the plunder") — each marked separately with the object marker. The LXX likewise lists three terms (αἰχμαλωσίαν, σκῦλα, προνομήν), preserving the threefold structure. The Vulgate, however, renders differently: it names only "the rest of the utensils" (reliqua autem utensilia) as being carried to the camp, without reproducing the same threefold Hebrew division of captives/booty/plunder in that clause, and structures the sentence so that the recipients (Moses, Eleazar, the congregation) and the goods (reliqua utensilia) belong to two separate clauses rather than one continuous list as in the Hebrew and the LXX.