Numbers 34:16

Summary

The verse is a short narrative formula introducing direct speech from Yehovah to Moses. It contains no content of the speech itself, only the announcement that a communication is about to occur.

Key words

• va ("and", H9001) — narrative vav prefixed to the verb, marking this as the next event in a sequence of prior narrated actions.
• y.da.Ber ("he spoke", H1696G) — piel stem of the root, verb form used consistently in this formulaic construction throughout the text; piel here does not necessarily imply repeated or forceful speaking but is the standard stem for this idiom of divine speech.
• Yehovah ("Yehovah", H3068G) — the divine name functioning as grammatical subject of the verb.
• mo.Sheh ("Moses", H4872) — proper name, object of the preposition 'el- ("to", H0413), marking the recipient of the speech.
• Mor ("saying", H0559) — qal infinitive construct, prefixed with le. ("to", H9005), forming the standard infinitive construction that introduces reported speech (literally "to say" / "saying").

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence follows a fixed syntactic pattern found repeatedly in this book: verb – subject – prepositional phrase – infinitive construct. The verb y.da.Ber ("he spoke", H1696G) opens the clause, preceded by the narrative va ("and", H9001), which links this statement to the preceding narrative flow without indicating cause or contrast — simply sequence. The subject Yehovah ("Yehovah", H3068G) follows the verb, a common verb-subject order in Biblical Hebrew narrative clauses.

The phrase 'el- mo.Sheh ("to Moses", H0413 + H4872) identifies the addressee using the preposition 'el- ("to", H0413), indicating direction of speech toward a person. The final element, le.Mor ("saying", H9005 + H0559), is an infinitive construct built from the qal stem of the root for "to say" (H0559). This construction functions grammatically as a marker that introduces direct discourse; it does not carry independent temporal or aspectual meaning here but signals that quoted speech follows. In this verse, however, no content of the speech is given — the formula stands alone, with the actual message beginning in the subsequent verse.

Differences between versions

The Greek (LXX) and Latin (Vulgate) both preserve the same basic sequence: verb, subject, recipient, and a marker for reported speech. The LXX uses λέγων ("saying"), a participle, to render the Hebrew infinitive le.Mor ("saying", H0559), while the Vulgate does not include an equivalent word for "saying" at all, ending the clause with "ad Moysen" ("to Moses"). This means the Vulgate omits an explicit grammatical marker for introducing direct speech that both the Hebrew and Greek contain.