Numbers 8:20

Summary

Numbers 8:20 reports that Moses, Aaron, and the whole congregation of Israel carried out the actions concerning the Levites exactly as Yehovah had commanded Moses. The verse doubles the statement of compliance: it names the leaders and community as executors, then restates that "the sons of Israel" did so.

Key words

• va-Ya'as ("and he did", H6213A) — qal narrative (wayyiqtol) form, opening the verse and marking a completed sequential action attributed to Moses as grammatical subject.
• 'adat ("congregation of", H5712) — feminine singular construct, linking "congregation" to "the sons of Israel" that follows, forming a compound subject with Moses and Aaron.
• tzivah ("he had commanded", H6680) — piel perfect, an intensive stem indicating a completed authoritative command; subject is Yehovah (H3068G).
• ken ("so", H3651C) — adverb that creates the correlation with ke-khol 'asher ("according to all that"), setting up a comparison between what was commanded and what was executed.
• 'asu ("they did", H6213A) — qal perfect, same root as the opening verb but now plural and perfect, closing the verse with the sons of Israel as subject.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built in two parallel halves joined by the correlative pair ke-khol 'asher ("according to all that") and ken ("so"). The first half names the executors — Mosheh (H4872), 'Aharon (H0175), and khol 'adat benei Yisra'el ("all the congregation of the sons of Israel") — as the ones who acted la-Leviyyim ("to/for the Levites", H3881, repeated with the preposition la + article). The second half repeats the verb root 'asah ("to do") in a different form: asu (qal perfect, plural), attaching the action explicitly to benei Yisra'el ("the sons of Israel") with the object marked by the suffixed preposition la-hem ("to them", H9038). This repetition of the same verb root — first in narrative wayyiqtol form, then in plain perfect — creates an inclusio that frames the middle clause reporting Yehovah's command to Moses via the piel perfect tzivah. The direct object marker 'et (H0853) before Mosheh in the middle clause marks Moses as the recipient of the divine command, distinct from his role as executor in the outer clauses.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew twice uses the preposition la ("to/for") before Leviyyim, while the LXX shifts prepositions: the first occurrence renders with the dative τοῖς Λευείταις ("to/for the Levites"), but the middle occurrence shifts to περὶ τῶν Λευειτῶν ("concerning the Levites"), a change of preposition not reflected in the Hebrew, which uses the same la construction in both places. The Vulgate text supplied ends after "quæ præceperat Dominus Moysi" ("which the Lord had commanded Moses"), omitting the closing Hebrew clause that restates the action of benei Yisra'el — this may reflect the specific excerpt given rather than the full Vulgate verse.