Numbers 31:25

Summary

The verse consists of a short narrative formula introducing direct divine speech: it states that Yehovah spoke to Moses, opening the way for the instructions that follow in the subsequent verses. No content of the speech itself is given here—only the introduction.

Key words

• va ("and", H9001) — narrative vav prefixed to the verb, marking this as the next event in the sequence of the story ("and then...").
• i.Yo.mer ("he said", H0559) — qal narrative verb form (vayyiqtol), third person masculine singular, indicating a completed past action within the story's timeline.
• Yehovah ("Yehovah", H3068G) — the divine name, functioning as the grammatical subject of the verb "he said."
• mo.Sheh ("Moses", H4872) — proper noun, the indirect object marked by the preposition 'el ("to", H0413), identifying the recipient of the speech.
• Mor ("saying", H0559) — infinitive construct of the same root as i.Yo.mer, prefixed with le ("to", H9005); this construction (lemor) conventionally introduces the content of a quoted speech.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence follows a fixed narrative pattern common in the Pentateuch: subject-verb-indirect object, closed by the infinitive lemor ("saying"), which functions here purely as a grammatical marker opening direct discourse. The verb i.Yo.mer ("he said", H0559) appears with the narrative vav, a construction that in Biblical Hebrew signals sequential action in past narrative — it moves the story forward from whatever preceded it to this new speech-act. The repetition of the root 'amar ("to say", H0559) — once as the finite verb and once as the infinitive lemor — is a stylistic redundancy typical of Hebrew narrative introducing quoted speech; the infinitive itself carries no independent semantic content beyond marking the transition into direct discourse.

The preposition 'el ("to", H0413) before mo.Sheh ("Moses", H4872) marks Moses as the addressee, not the speaker, distinguishing this formula from constructions where Moses himself relays speech to others. The verse contains no verbal content beyond this introductory formula; the actual message from Yehovah begins only in the following verse.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew lemor ("saying", H0559) — the infinitive marking the onset of direct speech — has no separate lexical equivalent in the LXX text given, which reads only "Καὶ ἐλάλησεν κύριος πρὸς Μωυσὶ" ("And the Lord spoke to Moses"), omitting a rendering of lemor. The Vulgate's "Dixit quoque Dominus ad Moysen" similarly renders the finite verb and indirect object but does not translate lemor as a separate word, treating the colon that follows as sufficient to introduce the quotation.