Numbers 6:22

Summary

This verse is a short narrative formula introducing direct speech from Yehovah to Moses. It contains no content of the message itself, only the announcement that a communication is about to occur.

Key words

• va-y'daBer ("and he spoke", H1696G) — piel verb with narrative vav, marking sequential action in the story; the piel form gives the verb an intensive nuance beyond a simple "to say".
• Yehovah ("Yehovah", H3068G) — proper name functioning as the subject of the verb, identifying the speaker.
• el- ("to", H0413) — preposition marking the addressee, directing the speech toward Moses.
• Mosheh ("Moses", H4872) — proper name, masculine, the recipient of the speech.
• leMor ("saying", H0559) — qal infinitive construct, introducing the forthcoming direct discourse; it functions as a formulaic hinge word attaching what follows to the verb of speaking.

What the text says

The verse follows a fixed syntactic pattern common in narrative introductions to divine speech: verb + subject + prepositional phrase + infinitive of "to say." The verb y'daBer ("he spoke") is in the piel stem, which in this root often carries a nuance of formal or emphatic speech rather than casual utterance. The narrative vav prefixed to the verb signals continuity with the preceding text, presenting this as the next event in sequence rather than an isolated statement.

The subject Yehovah immediately follows the verb, a normal verb-subject order in Biblical Hebrew narrative. The prepositional phrase el-Mosheh ("to Moses") specifies the addressee using the preposition 'el, which indicates direction toward a person. Finally, leMor ("saying") is an infinitive construct built on the root 'amar ("to say"), commonly used in Biblical Hebrew as a formulaic device to open direct speech; it does not add new semantic content but grammatically links the introductory clause to the quotation that follows in subsequent verses.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew places the verb y'daBer before the subject Yehovah, consistent with standard Hebrew verb-subject word order. The Septuagint (LXX) renders this with elalēsen Kyrios ("Lord spoke"), preserving the verb-subject sequence. The Vulgate uses Locutusque est Dominus ("And the Lord spoke"), also maintaining verb-first order, with the enclitic -que corresponding to the Hebrew narrative vav. The English BSB shifts to subject-verb order ("Then the LORD said"), a normal adaptation to English syntax rather than a divergence in meaning. All versions agree in identifying Yehovah/Kyrios/Dominus as the speaker and Moses as the addressee, with no substantive difference in content, only in word order dictated by each language's grammar.