Numbers 32:2

Summary

Numbers 32:2 reports that the descendants of Gad and the descendants of Reuben approached Moses, Eleazar the priest, and the leaders of the congregation with a statement about to follow. The verse functions as an introductory narrative frame, naming both the speakers and their addressees before the direct speech begins.

Key words

• bene ("descendants of", H1121G) — masculine plural construct, used twice (for Gad and for Reuben), linking each tribal name to the collective noun "sons/descendants of."
• yavo'u ("they came", H0935G) — qal narrative form (vav-consecutive), marking sequential action: "and then they came."
• yomeru ("they said", H0559) — qal narrative form, parallel in structure to yavo'u, presenting a second sequential action: "and then they said."
• nesi'ei ("leaders of", H5387A) — masculine plural construct, grammatically parallel to bene, forming a construct chain with ha'edah ("the congregation," H5712).
• le'mor ("saying", H0559) — infinitive construct with prefixed le- (H9005), the standard formula introducing direct speech that follows in v.3.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built on two coordinated narrative verbs, yavo'u ("they came") and yomeru ("they said"), both in the qal narrative (vav-consecutive) form, presenting the approach and the speech as two sequential events rather than a single simultaneous act. The subject of both verbs is a compound phrase, bene gad ("descendants of Gad") joined by the conjunction u- ("and", H9002) to bene re'uven ("descendants of Reuben"), each construct phrase naming a tribal group rather than individuals.

The addressees are introduced through a triple repetition of the preposition 'el ("to", H0413): to Moses, to Eleazar the priest, and to the leaders of the congregation. This repetition gives each addressee grammatical equal weight, rather than subordinating the priest or the leaders to Moses. The final word, le'mor ("saying"), is an infinitive construct that formally opens direct discourse, a common formula that signals the verse's function purely as narrative introduction — the content of the speech itself begins in the following verse.

Differences between versions

The LXX orders the tribal groups in reverse, naming οἱ υἱοὶ Ῥουβὴν ("the sons of Reuben") before οἱ υἱοὶ Γάδ ("the sons of Gad"), while the Hebrew names bene gad before bene re'uven. The LXX also splits the two Hebrew narrative verbs differently, using a participle προσελθόντες ("having approached") for the "coming" and a separate finite verb εἶπαν ("they said"), rather than two coordinated finite verbs as in the Hebrew. The Vulgate's given clause, "venerunt ad Moysen, et ad Elezarum sacerdotem, et principes multitudinis, atque dixerunt," does not explicitly restate the subject "filii Gad et filii Ruben" within this segment, leaving the tribal identification to be understood from the preceding verse rather than stated grammatically within v.2 itself.