Numbers 4:31
וְזֹאת מִשְׁמֶרֶת מַשָּׂאָם לְכָל־עֲבֹדָתָם בְּאֹהֶל מוֹעֵד קַרְשֵׁי הַמִּשְׁכָּן וּבְרִיחָיו וְעַמּוּדָיו וַאֲדָנָֽיו׃
✦ Hebrew interlinear
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✦ The same verse in five languages
וְזֹאת֙ מִשְׁמֶ֣רֶת מַשָּׂאָ֔ם לְכָל־עֲבֹדָתָ֖ם בְּאֹ֣הֶל מוֹעֵ֑ד קַרְשֵׁי֙ הַמִּשְׁכָּ֔ן וּבְרִיחָ֖יו וְעַמּוּדָ֥יו וַאֲדָנָֽיו׃
καὶ ταῦτα τὰ φυλάγματα τῶν αἰρομένων ὑπ’ αὐτῶν κατὰ πάντα τὰ ἔργα τῶν ἐν τῆ σκηνῇ τοῦ μαρτυρίου· τὰς κεφαλίδας τῆς σκηνῆς κα τοὺς καὶ τοὺς στύλους αὐτῆς καὶ τὰς βάσεις αὐτῆς καὶ τὸ κατακάλυμμα, καὶ αἱ βάσεις αὐτῶν καὶ οἱ στῦλοι αὐτῶν, καὶ τὸ κατακάλυμμα τῆς θύρας τῆς σκηνῆς,
Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0
Latin (Vulgate)
Hæc sunt onera eorum: portabunt tabulas tabernaculi et vectes ejus, columnas ac bases earum,
Y esta es su responsabilidad respecto a lo que deben cargar, como parte de su servicio en la Tienda del Encuentro: las tablas del tabernáculo, sus travesaños, sus postes, sus bases,
Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)
Y este será el deber de su cargo para todo su servicio en el tabernáculo del testimonio: las tablas del tabernáculo, y sus barras, y sus columnas, y sus basas,
This is the duty for all their service at the Tent of Meeting: to carry the frames of the tabernacle with its crossbars, posts, and bases,
✦ What the text says
Summary
The verse introduces a list of duties assigned to a group (the Merarites, per context) regarding what they must carry in service at the Tent of Meeting. It specifies that their responsibility (mishMeret, H4931) concerns the transport (masa, H4853A) of the tabernacle's structural components: frames, bars, pillars, and bases.
Key words
mishMeret ("duty of", H4931) — feminine singular construct noun, opening the sentence as the predicate defining what follows; grammatically it governs the next noun in a construct chain ("the duty of...").
masa ("carrying", H4853A) — masculine singular construct noun with 3rd person masculine plural suffix ("their"), forming "the duty of their carrying" — the construct chain specifies that the mishMeret concerns the act of transport itself.
'avodah ("service", H5656H) — feminine singular construct with suffix "their," linked by le- ("for") + khol ("all") to form "for all their service," broadening the scope from carrying alone to the entirety of their assigned work.
qarshei ("frames of", H7175) — masculine plural construct, beginning the itemized list; construct form links it directly to ha-mishkan ("the tabernacle", H4908), yielding "the frames of the tabernacle."
berichav ("its bars", H1280), 'amudav ("its pillars", H5982G), 'adanav ("its bases", H0134) — each masculine plural noun bears a 3rd masculine singular suffix ("its"), all referring back to ha-mishkan, and are joined by repeated ve- ("and") in a coordinated list.
What the text says
The Hebrew sentence opens with the demonstrative zot ("this") followed by the construct noun mishMeret, creating a formula ("this is the duty of...") that Numbers uses repeatedly to introduce assignments. The double construct chain — mishMeret masa'am, "the duty of their carrying" — nests one noun inside another, a common Hebrew mechanism for expressing specification without a separate verb "to carry"; the noun masa itself denotes the load or the act of bearing a load.
The phrase le-khol 'avodatam ("for all their service") uses the preposition le- to indicate purpose or scope, expanding "carrying" into the larger category of "service," and locates that service be-'ohel mo'ed ("in the Tent of Meeting"). The list that follows — qarshei ha-mishkan, then bars, pillars, and bases — is a chain of construct nouns each carrying a 3rd masculine singular suffix referring back to ha-mishkan ("the tabernacle"), so each item is grammatically tied to the tabernacle as its possessor, even though "tabernacle" is stated explicitly only once, with the article ha- (H9009).
Differences between versions
The LXX (Swete) renders the passage with additional items not present in the Hebrew construct chain — including "the curtain" (κατακάλυμμα) and repeated mention of bases and pillars — producing a longer list than the Hebrew's four items (frames, bars, pillars, bases). The Vulgate follows the Hebrew list order more closely (tabulas, vectes, columnas, bases) but does not preserve the Hebrew's doubled construct structure (mishMeret masa'am), instead opening with the simpler "Haec sunt onera eorum" ("these are their burdens").
This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.