Numbers 6:25

Summary

This verse is the second line of the priestly blessing, asking that Yehovah's face shine upon the addressee and that he show favor. The sentence uses two jussive/imperfect verbs expressing a wish or invocation directed at a second-person singular masculine recipient.

Key words

• ya'Er ("may he make shine", H0215) — hiphil jussive of the root meaning "to give light", causative form: the subject (Yehovah) causes light/shining to occur, here applied metaphorically to the "face".
• Yehovah ("Yehovah", H3068G) — the divine proper name, subject of both verbs in the verse.
• paNav ("his face", H6440H) — masculine plural noun in construct state with the pronominal suffix "his", literally "faces of him"; Hebrew regularly uses the plural form panim for "face" even when referring to a single face.
• 'eLeikha ("to you", H0413 + H9031) — preposition with second-person masculine singular suffix, marking the addressee toward whom the shining face is directed.
• vichuNekka ("and may he show favor to you", H2603A + H9031) — qal verb with prefixed conjunction vav, carrying imperfect/jussive force parallel to the first verb, followed by the same second-person suffix "you".

What the text says

The verse consists of two parallel wish-clauses joined by the conjunction vi- ("and"). The first clause places the verb ya'Er ("may he make shine") before its subject Yehovah, a common verb-subject order in Biblical Hebrew poetic/liturgical style. The object of the causative action is paNav ("his face"), grammatically plural but referring to a single face, followed by the prepositional phrase 'eLeikha ("to you") indicating the direction of the action toward the addressee.

The second clause, vichuNekka, repeats the second-person suffix "you" as direct object of the verb "to show favor," maintaining grammatical parallelism with the first clause without repeating the subject Yehovah, which remains understood from the first clause. Both verbs carry jussive/volitive nuance, expressing a wish or invocation rather than a simple statement of fact — this is a grammatical feature not always visible in translation, where "may he" or "let him" renders the mood.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the verb ya'Er with the optative form ἐπιφάναι ("may he show/manifest"), and translates paNav ("his face") literally as τὸ πρόσωπον αὐτοῦ ("his face," singular in Greek, matching the semantic singularity though the Hebrew noun form is plural). The Vulgate renders the first verb as "Ostendat... faciem suam" ("may he show his face"), using "ostendat" (show) rather than a term specifically meaning "shine," where the Hebrew ya'Er carries the sense of causing light. For the second clause, the LXX uses ἐλεήσαι ("may he have mercy"), and the Vulgate "misereatur" ("may he have mercy"), both rendering vichuNekka with a mercy-related term, while the Hebrew root H2603A is glossed as "to show favor to," a related but distinct semantic field.