Numbers 35:2
צַו אֶת־בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל וְנָתְנוּ לַלְוִיִּם מִֽנַּחֲלַת אֲחֻזָּתָם עָרִים לָשָׁבֶת וּמִגְרָשׁ לֶֽעָרִים סְבִיבֹתֵיהֶם תִּתְּנוּ לַלְוִיִּֽם׃
✦ Hebrew interlinear
Tap a word to see its entry
✦ The same verse in five languages
צַו֮ אֶת־בְּנֵ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵל֒ וְנָתְנ֣וּ לַלְוִיִּ֗ם מִֽנַּחֲלַ֛ת אֲחֻזָּתָ֖ם עָרִ֣ים לָשָׁ֑בֶת וּמִגְרָ֗שׁ לֶֽעָרִים֙ סְבִיבֹ֣תֵיהֶ֔ם תִּתְּנ֖וּ לַלְוִיִּֽם׃
Σύνταξον τοῖς υἱοῖς Ἰσραὴλ καὶ δώσουσιν τοῖς Λευείταις ἀπὸ τῶν κλήρων κατασχέσεως αὐτῶν πόλεις κατοικεῖν, καὶ τὰ προάστια τῶν πόλεων κύκλω αὐτῶν δώσουσιν τοῖς Λευείταις·
Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0
Latin (Vulgate)
Præcipe filiis Israël ut dent Levitis de possessionibus suis
“Ordénales a los israelitas que, de las tierras que reciban como herencia, les den a los levitas ciudades donde vivir, junto con los pastizales que rodean esas ciudades.
Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)
Manda á los hijos de Israel, que den á los Levitas de la posesión de su heredad ciudades en que habiten: también daréis á los Levitas los ejidos de esas ciudades alrededor de ellas.
“ Command the Israelites to give, from the inheritance they will possess, cities for the Levites to live in and pasturelands around the cities.
✦ What the text says
Summary
The verse records a divine instruction to Moses to command the Israelites to allocate, out of their tribal landholdings, cities for the Levites to live in, along with surrounding pasture land. The sentence unfolds in two linked but distinct grammatical moves: an initial provision of cities and a further provision of grazing land around them.
Key words
- tzav ("command", H6680) — Piel imperative, giving the verse its force as a direct divine order to Moses.
- na.te.Nu ("they will give", H5414G) — Qal sequential perfect (also called "waw-consecutive perfective"), continuing the narrative sequence begun by the imperative; grammatically third person plural ("they").
- na.cha.Lat ("inheritance of", H5159) and 'a.chu.za.Ta ("possession", H0272) — two nouns in construct chain ("inheritance of their possession"), a doubled construction emphasizing the land as both inherited and legally held.
- la.Shavet ("to dwell in", H3427) — Qal infinitive, expressing purpose: the cities are given specifically for the purpose of habitation.
- ti.te.Nu ("you will give", H5414G) — Qal imperfect, second person plural ("you all"), marking a shift in grammatical subject/person from the earlier na.te.Nu.
What the text says
The verse opens with the imperative tzav, addressed to Moses, followed by 'et-be.nei Yis.ra.'El marking "the sons of Israel" as the object of the command — that is, Israel is the one being commanded, not merely spoken to. The clause that follows shifts into narrative sequence with na.te.Nu ("they will give"), a third-person verb form that carries forward the command's content: the Israelites will give cities to the Levites from the land they already hold as na.cha.Lat 'a.chu.za.Tam, a doubled construct phrase stressing that this land is both an inheritance and a possession.
The second half of the verse repeats the giving action but with two changes: the noun mig.Rash ("pasture land") replaces "cities," and the verb shifts to ti.te.Nu, an imperfect in the second person plural ("you will give"). This change from third person ("they") to second person ("you all") within the same verse is a feature of the Hebrew grammar not preserved in translation, where both clauses typically read uniformly as "they/you shall give."
Differences between versions
The LXX renders the command with a dative, τοῖς υἱοῖς Ἰσραὴλ ("to the sons of Israel"), where the Hebrew marks be.nei Yis.ra.'El with the direct object marker 'et, presenting Israel as the direct object of the command itself rather than its indirect recipient. The Vulgate text supplied here (Præcipe filiis Israël ut dent Levitis de possessionibus suis) ends before addressing the cities and pasture lands explicitly named in the Hebrew and LXX.
This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.