Numbers 7:30

Summary

The verse identifies the date and the person who brought the offering on the fourth day of the dedication ceremony: Elizur son of Shedeur, designated as the leader of the descendants of Reuben.

Key words

• ba-yom ("on the day", H9003/H3117G) — preposition plus noun marking the temporal setting, paired with the ordinal that follows.
• ha-revi'i ("the fourth", H7243) — masculine singular ordinal with definite article, agreeing with yom ("day") to specify which day in the sequence of tribal offerings.
• nasi' ("leader", H5387A) — singular noun used as a title, here syntactically appositional to the personal name that follows later in the verse.
• li-vnei Re'uven ("of the descendants of Reuben", H1121A/H7205) — construct chain: vnei is masculine plural construct ("sons of"), governed by the preposition li ("belonging to"), forming the phrase "for the sons of Reuben."
• ben-Shede'ur ("son of Shedeur", H1121G/H7707) — construct singular noun ben directly bound to the father's name, the standard patronymic formula.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence opens with a temporal phrase, ba-yom ha-revi'i ("on the fourth day"), placing this verse within a repeated formulaic structure describing successive days of tribal offerings. The core of the verse is a nominal (verbless) clause: it names the office (nasi', "leader") tied to a tribal group (li-vnei Re'uven, "of the sons of Reuben") and then gives the personal identification through the name Elitzur followed by its patronymic ben-Shede'ur ("son of Shedeur"). Hebrew here relies on apposition rather than a finite verb — no verb "to be" or "to bring" appears in this verse itself; the identification is built purely through juxtaposed noun phrases.

The construct chain li-vnei Re'uven shows the preposition li attached directly to the construct plural noun vnei, expressing tribal affiliation ("belonging to the sons of Reuben") rather than mere genitive possession. Similarly, ben-Shede'ur uses the bound construct form of ben ("son of") to state genealogy in a single fused phrase, typical of Biblical Hebrew's compact naming conventions.

Differences between versions

The BSB and SBLIBRE add a verb ("drew near") not present in the Hebrew clause supplied here, supplying narrative continuity from earlier verses in the chapter. The LXX (Swete) renders the patronymic as Edisour rather than matching the Hebrew Shede'ur transliteration pattern seen in Elisour, showing a scribal/transliteration variant for the same name. The Vulgate's Sedeur aligns more closely with the Hebrew consonantal form than the LXX's Edisour.