Numbers 7:60

Summary

Numbers 7:60 identifies the tribal leader who presented offerings on the ninth day of the dedication ceremony. The text names him as Abidan, son of Gideoni, leader of the descendants of Benjamin.

Key words

• ba.i.Yom — preposition + article + noun "on the day" (H9003/H3117G): marks the temporal setting, "on the day."
• ha.te.shi.'I — article + ordinal "the ninth" (H9009/H8671): defines which day in the sequence of tribal presentations.
• na.Si' — "leader" (H5387A), masculine singular noun in construct relation with the following phrase, identifying an office/title.
• v.nei — "descendants of" (H1121A), masculine plural construct form meaning "sons of," linking the leader to his tribal group.
• ben — "son of" (H1121G), masculine singular construct, used within personal genealogy to link Abidan to his father Gideoni.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence follows the repeated formulaic structure used throughout Numbers 7 for each tribal leader's offering day. It opens with a temporal phrase, ba.i.Yom ha.te.shi.'I ("on the ninth day"), fixing the sequence within the twelve-day dedication cycle. This is followed by the title na.Si' ("leader"), placed in construct with li.v.nei vin.ya.Min ("of the descendants of Benjamin"), indicating that the office belongs to the tribe of Benjamin specifically.

The personal name 'a.vi.Dan ("Abidan") is then given, followed by the patronymic construct ben gid.'o.Ni ("son of Gideoni"), which identifies his father. The word order in Hebrew presents the day first, then the title and tribal affiliation, and only afterward the personal name — a pattern distinct from modern narrative sequencing, where the person's action often comes first.

Differences between versions

The BSB rendering restructures the sentence to place the personal name and verb ("Abidan son of Gideoni... drew near") before the tribal title, reflecting a more narrative English word order absent in the Hebrew, which lacks an explicit verb in this verse and relies on the surrounding context of Numbers 7 for the verb "presented" or "drew near." The LXX (Swete) preserves the same basic order as the Hebrew, rendering na.Si' as archōn ("ruler") and using huios for construct "son of," consistent with the Hebrew ben (H1121G). The Vulgate similarly follows the Hebrew order, using "princeps filiorum Benjamin" for "leader of the sons of Benjamin," matching the construct chain in Hebrew.