Numbers 7:12

Summary

The verse identifies the person who brought the offering on the first day of the dedication of the altar: Nahshon, son of Amminadab, associated with the tribe of Judah. The Hebrew sentence structure emphasizes first who was doing the offering, then supplies his name and lineage.

Key words

• mak.Riv ("[one who] brought near", H7126H) — hiphil participle, masculine singular. The hiphil (causative) participle frames the action as ongoing/identifying ("the one bringing near"), not a single completed act; the participle functions almost as a title, "the offerer."
• ka.re.ba.N ("offering", H7133A) — construct noun with pronominal suffix o ("his"), meaning "his offering." The construct form ties the noun directly to the possessive suffix without an intervening preposition.
• ben- ("[the] son of", H1121A) — construct noun linking Nachshon to Amminadab, the standard patronymic construction in Hebrew narrative.
• ma.Teh ("[the] tribe of", H4294H) — construct noun preceded by the preposition le ("of/to"), forming "to/for the tribe of Judah," marking association or belonging rather than direct grammatical possession.
• ri.Shon ("first", H7223G) — ordinal number, masculine singular, modifying yom ("day") to specify "the first day" within the sequence of the tribal leaders' offerings.

What the text says

The verse opens with the narrative formula va-yehi ("and it was"), a common Hebrew construction that introduces a new scene or event in sequence. The subject of the sentence is introduced through the participle ha-makriv ("the one bringing near"), preceded by the definite article, functioning as a substantive: "the offerer." This participial subject is temporally located "on the first day" (ba-yom ha-rishon) and given a direct object, et-korbano ("his offering"), marked by the object-marker 'et and the construct-plus-suffix noun korban-o.

Only after establishing the action and its object does the text supply the subject's identity by name: Nachshon ben-Amminadav, and his tribal association le-matteh Yehudah ("to/for the tribe of Judah"). This word order — action and object first, personal name second — is characteristic of the chapter's repeated formula for each tribal leader's offering, placing the ritual act and its recipient of description before the human agent's proper identification.

Differences between versions

The Septuagint adds the title ἄρχων τῆς φυλῆς ("ruler of the tribe") after the name Ναασσὼν (Nahshon), a designation not present in the Hebrew construction le-matteh Yehudah ("of/to the tribe of Judah"), which lacks any explicit title for Nahshon. The Vulgate's de tribu Juda ("from the tribe of Judah") follows the Hebrew more closely in omitting any title, matching the construct phrase without added rank.