Numbers 8:6

Summary

Numbers 8:6 records a divine command to Moses: take the Levites out from among the Israelites and purify them. The verse consists of two linked instructions — a command to separate the Levites, followed by a command to perform a purification act upon them.

Key words

• kach ("take", H3947) — qal imperative, second person masculine singular; a direct command addressed to one man (Moses, by context of the surrounding chapter).
• ha-levi'im ("the Levites", H3881) — definite gentilic noun, masculine plural, marking a specific, already-known group.
• mi-tokh ("from among", H8432) — preposition + noun in construct form, meaning "from the midst of," expressing extraction from a larger body.
• bene Yisra'el ("sons/people of Israel", H1121 + H3478) — construct noun plus proper name, denoting the larger collective from which the Levites are drawn.
• tiharta ("you will purify", H2891) — piel sequential perfect, second person masculine singular; the piel stem gives an intensive/causative sense ("to make pure"), and the sequential perfect form continues the action begun by the initial imperative, functioning as a second command in the chain.

What the text says

The verse opens with the imperative kach ("take"), directly addressed to a single male addressee, establishing the first action: removing the Levites (ha-levi'im) from a larger group. The phrase mi-tokh bene Yisra'el ("from among the people of Israel") uses the construct chain tokh...bene to specify the source of separation — the Levites are drawn out from within the collective body of Israel, not simply distinguished from it.

The narrative vav prefixed to ve-tiharta links this second verb to the first imperative as a continuation of the same command sequence; grammatically, the sequential perfect after an imperative functions as an additional instruction rather than a separate independent statement. The piel stem of tiharta ("you will purify") intensifies the verbal action beyond a simple qal "to be clean," indicating an active, causative process — the addressee is to render the Levites pure, not merely observe that they are pure. The pronominal suffix -tam ("them") on the object marker 'otam refers back to ha-levi'im, closing the sentence by specifying who receives the purifying action.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the verse without a direct equivalent for ha-levi'im ("the Levites") as a distinct noun in that clause — the Greek text reads "take those from the midst of the sons of Israel" (τοὺς ἐκ μέσου υἱῶν Ἰσραὴλ), relying on the article τοὺς rather than repeating "Levites" explicitly at that point, whereas the Hebrew and the Vulgate ("Tolle Levitas de medio filiorum Israël") both name the Levites explicitly in this verse.