Numbers 7:2
וַיַּקְרִיבוּ נְשִׂיאֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל רָאשֵׁי בֵּית אֲבֹתָם הֵם נְשִׂיאֵי הַמַּטֹּת הֵם הָעֹמְדִים עַל־הַפְּקֻדִֽים׃
✦ Hebrew interlinear
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✦ The same verse in five languages
וַיַּקְרִ֙יבוּ֙ נְשִׂיאֵ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל רָאשֵׁ֖י בֵּ֣ית אֲבֹתָ֑ם הֵ֚ם נְשִׂיאֵ֣י הַמַּטֹּ֔ת הֵ֥ם הָעֹמְדִ֖ים עַל־הַפְּקֻדִֽים׃
κα προσήνεγκαν οἱ ἄρχοντες Ἰσραήλ, ιβ΄ ἄρχοντες οἴκων πατριῶν αὐτῶν · οὗτοι ἄρχοντες φυλῶν, οὗτοι οἱ παρεστηκότες ἐπὶ τῆς ἐπισκοπῆς·
Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0
Latin (Vulgate)
obtulerunt principes Israël et capita familiarum, qui erant per singulas tribus, præfectique eorum, qui numerati fuerant,
los líderes de Israel, los jefes de las casas de sus padres, presentaron ofrendas. Estos eran los líderes de las tribus, los que estaban a cargo del censo;
Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)
Entonces los príncipes de Israel, las cabezas de las casas de sus padres, los cuales eran los príncipes de las tribus, que estaban sobre los contados, ofrecieron;
And the leaders of Israel, the heads of their families, presented an offering. These men were the tribal leaders who had supervised the registration.
✦ What the text says
Summary
The verse identifies who presented the offerings described in the surrounding chapter: the leaders of Israel, described through two layers of genealogical and administrative identification — heads of ancestral houses, tribal leaders, and supervisors of the census (pequdim, "enrolled [men]", H6485A). The syntax uses two emphatic identification clauses to specify exactly who these men were.
Key words
- va-yyaqrivu ("and they brought near", H7126G) — hiphil narrative form; the causative stem indicates they caused an offering to be brought forward, not merely that they arrived.
- nesi'ei ("leaders of", H5387A) — masculine plural construct, appearing twice (once for Israel, once for the tribes), linking the leaders to two different groups they represent.
- hem ("they", H1992) — personal pronoun used twice, each time introducing a nominal clause of identification ("they [are/were] the leaders of...", "they [are/were] the ones standing...").
- ha-'omdim ("the ones standing", H5975H) — qal active participle with definite article, functioning as a substantive noun ("those who stand/are stationed"), describing an ongoing role rather than a single past action.
- ha-pequdim ("the enrolled [men]", H6485A) — qal passive participle with definite article, denoting those who underwent the counting/registration process.
What the text says
The Hebrew sentence opens with a single main verb, va-yyaqrivu, followed by a chain of appositional phrases that pile up before any predicate resumes. Nesi'ei Yisra'el ("leaders of Israel") is immediately re-specified by ra'shei beit avotam ("heads of the house of their fathers"), a double construct chain (beit + avotam) that nests one genitive relation inside another. The text then uses hem twice, each time forming a short nominal clause without a copula verb — a common Biblical Hebrew construction where a pronoun plus noun/participle asserts identity or characteristic role ("they [are] the leaders of the tribes," "they [are] the ones standing over the enrolled"). The participle ha-'omdim denotes a standing, ongoing function — overseeing the pequdim — rather than one completed event.
Differences between versions
The Vulgate replaces the two Hebrew hem-clauses with relative constructions: "qui erant per singulas tribus" and "praefectique eorum, qui numerati fuerant," turning the participial "standing over" into a noun, praefecti ("prefects/overseers"). The LXX similarly uses relative-like apposition (οὗτοι... οὗτοι) but renders ha-'omdim as παρεστηκότες ("those who stood by"), and ha-pequdim as τῆς ἐπισκοπῆς ("the oversight/census duty") rather than as the enrolled men themselves — shifting the phrase from naming the counted group to naming the act of counting.
This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.