Numbers 6:27

Summary

This verse concludes the priestly blessing passage, stating that the priests will place the divine name upon the Israelites, and that God himself will bless them. The verse establishes a two-part action: the priests' act of naming, followed by God's own act of blessing.

Key words

• sa.Mu ("they will put", H7760H) — qal sequential perfect, third person plural; continues the narrative sequence from the preceding verses, indicating a consequential or resultant action tied to what precedes.
• she.M ("name", H8034) — masculine singular noun in construct form ("name of"), joined to the following suffix to mean "my name"; construct state links it directly to the possessor.
• 'al- ("on", H5921A) — preposition marking the placement of the name "upon" the people, indicating a location or object of application rather than mere association.
• 'a.Ni ("I", H0589) — independent personal pronoun, placed before the verb for emphasis, marking a contrast between the priests' action (verse's first half) and the subject's own action (second half).
• 'a.va.ra.Khe ("I will bless", H1288) — piel imperfect, first person singular; the piel stem intensifies the action of blessing, and the imperfect aspect indicates an ongoing or future action.

What the text says

The verse divides into two clauses joined by the conjunction va. ("and", H9002). The first clause, introduced by the narrative ve. ("and", H9001), has sa.Mu ("they will put", H7760H) as its verb, with an unnamed but implied subject (the priests, continuing from earlier verses in the passage). The object is she.M ("name", H8034) in construct with the suffix -i ("my", H9020), yielding "my name," and this is placed 'al- ("on", H5921A) be.Nei Yis.ra.'El ("[the] people of Israel", H1121G + H3478) — literally "the sons of Israel."

The second clause reverses the syntactic emphasis: the independent pronoun 'a.Ni ("I", H0589) appears explicitly before the verb 'a.va.ra.Khe ("I will bless", H1288), which already contains a first-person subject marker within its verbal form. This redundancy — pronoun plus verbal inflection — creates emphatic contrast in Hebrew, setting apart the divine action from the priestly action described in the first clause. The verb is in the piel stem, an intensive verbal pattern, and in the imperfect aspect, which in this context conveys future or continuing action. The suffix -m ("them", H9038) on the verb marks the recipients of the blessing, referring back to be.Nei Yis.ra.'El.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders sa.Mu ("they will put") with ἐπιθήσουσιν, a future indicative, differing from the Hebrew sequential perfect but conveying similar futurity. The Vulgate uses invocabunt ("they will invoke/call upon") for the same clause, introducing the concept of invocation rather than simple placement, where the Hebrew verb sa.Mu ("they will put", H7760H) more literally means "to put" or "to place" rather than "to call upon."