Numbers 5:4

Summary

The verse reports that the Israelites carried out the instructions just given (regarding those with skin disease, discharge, or corpse-contamination): they sent these people outside the camp, exactly as Yehovah had commanded Moses. The verse closes the unit by repeating that the Israelites "did so."

Key words

• ya'asu / asu — ya'asu ("they did", H6213A) opens the verse as a qal narrative verb (vayiqtol), while asu ("they did", H6213A) closes it as a qal perfect; the same root frames the whole verse.
• khen ("so", H3651C) — this adverb occurs twice (beginning and end), creating a verbal frame around the entire verse.
• yeshallechu ("they sent away", H7971G) — piel stem, giving an intensive or causative nuance to "sending," stronger than a simple qal "to send."
• mi.chutz ("from outside", H2351) — construct noun forming a chain with la.machaneh ("of the camp", H4264), literally "to from-outside of the camp."
• ka'asher ("as", H0834D) — relative particle introducing the comparison clause that measures Israel's action against Yehovah's spoken command.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built as an inclusio: it opens with vaya'asu-khen bene Yisra'el ("and the sons of Israel did so") and closes with ken 'asu bene Yisra'el ("so the sons of Israel did"), the same root asah (H6213A) and the same adverb khen (H3651C) appearing at both ends. Between these two matching clauses sits the actual content of the compliance: vayeshallechu 'otam 'el-michutz lamachaneh ("and they sent them to outside the camp"), using the piel of shalach (H7971G), which intensifies the sending compared to a plain qal form. The phrase 'el-michutz lamachaneh stacks two prepositions and a construct noun (chutz, H2351, "outside of") to specify direction and location together — "to the outside-of the camp."

The comparison clause ka'asher dibber Yehovah 'el-Mosheh ("as Yehovah had spoken to Moses") uses the piel perfect dibber (H1696G), marking completed prior speech that the people's action now fulfills. The doubled khen...ken structure gives the Hebrew a formal, almost legal closure: the narrator states the command was executed, then states it again in near-identical terms, reinforcing the exactness of compliance without adding new information.

Differences between versions

The LXX preserves the same repetition pattern (ἐποίησαν οὕτως... οὕτως ἐποίησαν), matching the Hebrew inclusio. The Vulgate, however, condenses the verse into a single sentence ("Feceruntque ita... sicut locutus erat Dominus Moysi") and does not repeat the closing "so the sons of Israel did," losing the framing structure visible in Hebrew and Greek. The Vulgate's ejecerunt ("they cast out/expelled") conveys a more forceful expulsion than the Hebrew piel yeshallechu ("they sent away"), though both indicate deliberate removal from the camp.