Numbers 5:2

Summary

Yehovah instructs Moses to command the Israelites to remove three categories of people from the camp: those with a skin disease, those with a bodily discharge, and those made unclean through contact with a corpse. The verse establishes a directive using imperative and purpose-clause verb forms tied together grammatically.

Key words

• tzav ("command", H6680) — Piel imperative, giving the verse its directive force; addressed to Moses in the singular.
• sheshalechu ("they may send away", H7971) — Piel imperfect with prefixed vav, expressing the purpose or result of the command: what the people of Israel are to do once commanded.
• tzaru'a ("one who has a skin disease", H6879) — Qal passive participle, describing a person in the resulting state of being affected, rather than the act of affecting.
• zav ("one who has a discharge", H2100) — Qal active participle, describing an ongoing condition rather than a completed or momentary act.
• nafesh ("corpse", H5315) — Here used with the preposition la ("to", H9005) in the idiom la-nafesh, meaning contact resulting in uncleanness from a dead body, rather than "soul" as this noun can otherwise mean.

What the text says

The verse opens with a Piel imperative, tzav ("command", H6680), directed at a single addressee (Moses, per context), followed by 'et-benei Yisra'el ("the people of Israel", H1121/H3478), marking the object of the command. The construction then shifts to a purpose clause introduced by vi- ("and/so", H9002) plus yeshalechu ("they may send away", H7971) in the imperfect — grammatically expressing what should follow from the command, i.e., "command X so that Y happens," rather than two separate independent statements.

The three categories to be sent away are each introduced by kol ("any/all", H3605) in construct form, linking to a following participle or adjective: tzaru'a (H6879, passive participle, "one who has a skin disease"), zav (H2100, active participle, "one who has a discharge"), and tame' la-nafesh ("unclean to a corpse", H2931 + H5315). The participial forms indicate ongoing states rather than single events — the text describes people currently in these conditions, not people who once experienced them. The construct chains with kol place emphasis on totality: every instance of each category, without exception, falls under the command.

Differences between versions

The Vulgate renders zav (H2100, "one who has a discharge") as "qui semine fluit" ("who flows with semen"), specifying the nature of the discharge more explicitly than the Hebrew participle, which is grammatically unspecified as to type. The LXX similarly renders it with "γονορρυῆ," a term specifying seminal discharge, again narrowing the more general Hebrew participle. The Hebrew tame' la-nafesh ("unclean to a corpse", H2931/H5315) is expanded in the Vulgate as "pollutusque est super mortuo" ("polluted over the dead one"), and in the SBLIBRE Spanish translation as "impuro por tocar un cadáver" ("unclean for touching a corpse"), both adding the notion of physical contact not explicitly stated by the Hebrew preposition la ("to", H9005) alone.