Numbers 4:27

Summary

Numbers 4:27 establishes that all the service of the Gershonite Levites — both their transport duties and their other tasks — falls under the direction of Aaron and his sons. It closes with an instruction to Moses and Aaron (or the officiating priests) to assign to the Gershonites their specific carrying responsibilities.

Key words

• pi ("[the] mouth of", H6310I) — construct form governing "Aaron"; the idiom 'al-pi ("on the mouth of") means "according to the command of," setting the sons of Gershon's work under Aaron's authority.
• 'avodat ("[the] service of", H5656H) — feminine singular construct; introduces the phrase "all the service of the descendants of the Gershonite," the general term for their labor.
• massa'am ("their carrying", H4853A + suffix) — construct noun with 3rd person plural suffix, appearing twice (lines 15-16 and 30-31), specifically denoting the load-bearing/transport aspect of their duty, distinct from 'avodah which covers service more broadly.
• u-fekadtem ("and you will assign", H6485J) — qal sequential perfect, 2nd person masculine plural; the verb continues the narrative sequence and shifts to a direct command addressed to a plural "you" (understood as Moses and Aaron based on context).
• mishmeret ("a duty", H4931) — feminine singular noun; paired with the preposition be- ("in"), it specifies that the assignment is "in/as a duty" or charge, not merely a task.

What the text says

The verse divides into two grammatical movements. The first is a nominal clause built on the construct chain 'al-pi 'Aharon u-vanav ("on the mouth of Aaron and his sons"), followed by the verb tihyeh ("it will be," H1961, qal imperfect, 3rd feminine singular) agreeing with the feminine noun 'avodat ("service of"). This construction places "all the service of the descendants of the Gershonite" (kol-'avodat benei ha-Gershuni) grammatically as the subject governed by Aaron's "mouth" — i.e., under his spoken direction. The scope of this service is then specified through two parallel construct phrases introduced by le-: le-khol-massa'am ("for all their carrying") and u-le-khol 'avodatam ("and for all their service"), distinguishing the physical transport labor from service more generally.

The second movement shifts to direct address with u-fekadtem ("and you will assign"), a sequential perfect continuing the narrative flow but functioning as an instruction. The object of this assignment, marked by the untranslated direct object marker 'et (H0853), is again kol-massa'am ("all their carrying") — repeating the term from the first clause and reinforcing that the specific content of what is being assigned is the carrying/transport duty. The phrase be-mishmeret ("in a duty/charge") qualifies how this assignment is made — as a formal charge rather than an informal task.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders massa'am ("their carrying") differently across the verse: in the middle clause it uses κατὰ πάντα τὰ ἔργα ("according to all the works"), and at the end τὰ ἄρτα (a term reflecting "loads" or "burdens" though textually distinct from Swete's more common rendering), showing less lexical consistency than the Hebrew's repeated massa'am. The LXX also renders 'avodah as λειτουργία ("service, ministration"), a term with cultic connotations not inherent in the more general Hebrew 'avodah. The Vulgate simplifies the final clause to "et scient singuli cui debeant oneri mancipari" ("and each will know to what burden he must be assigned"), shifting the grammatical subject from the 2nd person plural command ("you will assign") to a 3rd person statement about the Gershonites' own knowledge.