Numbers 9:23

Summary

The verse states that the Israelites encamped and set out according to the "mouth" of Yehovah, and that they kept Yehovah's charge, all transmitted through the agency of Moses. The repetition of the same phrase across the sentence emphasizes that both stopping and moving were governed by a single recurring directive.

Key words

pi ("mouth of", H6310I) — masculine singular construct, repeated three times in the verse (lines 2, 7, 15). Literally "mouth," used idiomatically with the preposition 'al ("on/according to") to mean "according to the command of." Its threefold repetition structures the entire verse.

yachanu ("they encamped", H2583) — qal imperfect, third person masculine plural. The imperfect aspect marks this as a recurring or habitual action rather than a single completed event.

yissa'u ("they set out", H5265) — qal imperfect, third person masculine plural, paired with yachanu. Together the two imperfects frame the whole cycle of stopping and traveling as an ongoing pattern.

mishmeret ("duty of / charge of", H4931) — feminine singular construct, governed by the direct object marker 'et (H0853). It names the object that was "kept" (shamaru), namely Yehovah's charge or requirement.

shamaru ("they kept", H8104G) — qal perfect, third person plural. Unlike the two preceding imperfects, this verb is in the perfect aspect, marking the "keeping" of the charge as a completed, summarized action rather than a repeated one.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built around three parallel clauses, each anchored by the phrase 'al pi Yehovah ("according to the mouth of Yehovah"), repeated at positions 1-4, 6-9, and 14-16. This triple repetition is a structural feature of the Hebrew that prose translations tend to smooth over by varying the wording (e.g., "at the LORD's command... according to His command"), but in the source text the identical phrase recurs verbatim each time, reinforcing that encamping, setting out, and keeping the charge all rest on the same recurring formula.

Grammatically, the verse shifts aspect midway: yachanu ("they encamped") and yissa'u ("they set out") are both qal imperfects, suggesting repeated or habitual action over time — the ongoing cycle of the camp's movements. By contrast, shamaru ("they kept") is a qal perfect, treating the observance of Yehovah's mishmeret ("charge", H4931) as a single, completed summary statement rather than a repeated event. The final clause adds be-yad Mosheh ("by the hand of Moses", H3027J), attributing the transmission of this command to Moses' agency, using the common idiom "hand of" to denote intermediary action.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the third occurrence of 'al pi Yehovah differently: instead of repeating "according to the mouth of the Lord," it reads διὰ προστάγματος κυρίου ("through the ordinance of the Lord"), and it restructures the connection between "keeping the charge" and "by the hand of Moses" without a separate fourth repetition of the phrase found in the Hebrew's fourth 'al pi clause (position 14-16), since the Hebrew text as segmented here has three instances of "mouth of Yehovah" plus the phrase again before "hand of Moses" — the Vulgate similarly compresses this into per verbum Domini... juxta imperium ejus, using "word" (verbum) rather than a literal "mouth" idiom, and adds erantque in excubiis Domini ("and they were in the watches of the Lord"), an interpretive expansion not present as a separate verb in the Hebrew's shamaru construction.