Numbers 6:9

Summary

The verse addresses the case of a Nazirite who becomes ritually defiled because someone dies suddenly in his presence. It specifies that this sudden death makes unclean the "head of his vow," and prescribes that he must shave his head on the day of his purification, identified as the seventh day.

Key words

• ya.Mut ("he will die", H4191) — qal imperfect, marking the death as a future/ongoing possibility within the conditional clause introduced by khi ("if", H3588A).
• pit.'Om ("suddenly", H6597) paired with Fe.ta' ("an instant", H6621) — this doubling of near-synonyms (noun + adverb from related roots) intensifies the sense of abruptness, "in a sudden instant."
• ti.Me' ("he will make unclean", H2930A) — piel sequential perfect, an intensive verb form indicating the defiling action results directly from the death, continuing the narrative sequence begun by the conditional.
• niz.R...o ("Nazirite vow...his", H5145G + H9023) — construct noun with pronominal suffix, linked to rosh ("head of", H7218A) in the phrase "head of his vow," treating the hair/head as the physical locus of the consecration.
• ye.gal.le.Che.nu ("he will shave it", H1548 + H9033) — piel imperfect with object suffix, closing the verse by restating the shaving command with emphasis on "it" (the head), reinforcing the instruction already given with gi.Lach ("he will shave", H1548) earlier in the verse.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built as a conditional chain: ve-khi ("and if") introduces the hypothetical death, followed by two sequential perfects (ti.Me', "he will make unclean"; gi.Lach, "he will shave") that narrate the consequences as if reporting what happens step by step once the condition is met. The verse ends with a second verb of shaving, ye.gal.le.Che.nu, now in the imperfect with a pronominal suffix ("he will shave it"), which restates and specifies the timing given earlier (ba-yom ha-shevi'i, "on the seventh day").

The repetition of the shaving action — first with gi.Lach tied to "the day of his purification" (yom tohorato) and then with ye.gal.le.Che.nu tied explicitly to "the seventh day" — creates an appositional structure in Hebrew: the "day of purification" and "the seventh day" are presented as the same referent, clarified through restatement rather than through a single continuous clause. The construct chain rosh nizro ("head of his Nazirite-vow") uses rosh not merely as a body part but as the term bearing the consecration itself, so that the defilement described by ti.Me' affects the vow through the head/hair.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the double Hebrew expression be-feta' pit'om ("in an instant, suddenly") with a single term, ταραχρῆμα ("suddenly"), collapsing the Hebrew's doubled emphasis into one word. The Vulgate's subito... coram eo ("suddenly... before him") makes explicit an idea of presence/proximity that in the Hebrew is only implied by 'alav ("with/upon him", H5921A) attached to yamut ("he will die"). The LXX also omits an explicit second verb for "he shall shave," rendering the final clause more elliptically ("and his head... on which day he is purified... he shall be shaved") compared to the Hebrew's two distinct shaving verbs (gi.Lach and ye.gal.le.Che.nu).