Numbers 31:48

Summary

This verse narrates that the officers appointed over the military units — specifically the commanders of thousands and the commanders of hundreds — approached Moses. It functions as the introduction to the report these officers will give in the following verses.

Key words

• va-yyikrevu (from qarab, "to draw near", H7126G) — narrative form (vav-consecutive) marking a new sequential action in the story; the plural subject indicates a collective, coordinated action by the officers.
• ha-pekudim ("the officers", H6485J) — a qal passive participle with the article: literally "the ones who were appointed/mustered." The passive form indicates these men received their position by another's designation, not by their own initiative.
• asher ("who/that", H0834A) — relative particle introducing a clause that specifies which pekudim is being discussed: those in charge of the army's thousands.
• sarei ("commanders of", H8269) — construct plural of "commander/chief," appearing twice (lines 12 and 16) to form two parallel expressions: "commanders of the thousands" and "commanders of the hundreds."
• ha-alafim ("the thousands", H0505G) — cardinal number in plural with article, functioning as a noun that designates the largest military subdivision, paired with ha-me'ot ("the hundreds", H3967) to designate the smaller one.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence has a clear grammatical structure: a main verb (va-yyikrevu, "and they drew near") followed by the destination (el-Mosheh, "to Moses") and then the subject, which is developed extensively. The subject is ha-pekudim ("the officers"), qualified by a relative clause introduced by asher ("who") that specifies these are officers "of the thousands of the army" (le-alfei ha-tzava). The sentence closes with an appositive construction that clarifies who these officers are: sarei ha-alafim ve-sarei ha-me'ot, "commanders of the thousands and commanders of the hundreds."

This appositive structure — repeating sarei ("commanders of") before each numerical term — creates a parallelism that names two ranks within the military hierarchy: those in charge of groups of a thousand and those in charge of groups of a hundred. The use of the passive participle pekudim* ("the ones appointed") for these officers underscores that their position derives from a formal designation, not from spontaneous initiative — a nuance that translations rendering it simply as "officers" or "commanders" do not always preserve explicitly.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders ha-pekudim ("the appointed ones") with the participle καθεσταμένοι ("those who have been constituted/established"), maintaining the passive sense of the Hebrew. It also adds πάντες ("all"), an element not present in the Masoretic Hebrew text, emphasizing the totality of the officers. The Vulgate uses principes exercitus ("princes/chiefs of the army") along with tribuni and centuriones, terms borrowed from Roman military organization to translate the Hebrew ranks of "commanders of thousands" and "commanders of hundreds," adapting the terminology to a different cultural context than the original Hebrew.