Numbers 5:16

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

The priest shall bring her near, and set her before Yahweh;

World English Bible · Public Domain

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Word by word

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וְהִקְרִ֥יב

qârab

H7126

“and · to approach”

Conjunction + Verb, Hiphil, Sequential Perfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular

Appears 283× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears at Genesis 12:11

Full BDB Definition

Origin: a primitive root

TWOT: 2065

to come near, approach, enter into, draw near - (Qal) to approach, draw near - (Niphal) to be brought near - (Piel) to cause to approach, bring near, cause to draw near - (Hiphil) to bring near, bring, present

About this verse

These counts appear in no published source. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged text and Lemma’s own curated glosses. What Lemma adds →

6: words
6: distinct lemmas
Pentateuch: section

Grammatical profile

2 verbs
3 nouns
1 particle

Verb forms

וְהִקְרִ֥יב Hiphil · Sequential Perfect
וְהֶֽעֱמִדָ֖הּ Hiphil · Sequential Perfect

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 11 words from the Hebrew and 14 from the Septuagint (LXX English) — closely comparable.

A rough comparison of the two English renderings, which tokenize alike — not a word-level alignment.

Word counts can differ between the Hebrew and the Greek without any difference in meaning — e.g. the Hebrew direct-object marker אֵת has no separate Greek word, and Greek often adds the article ὁ.

In the original languages it is 6 Hebrew tokens and 10 Greek tokens — but the two are counted differently (Hebrew bundles its prefixes and suffixes into one token; the Greek is in lemma form), so that isn’t a like-for-like length.

Cross-references

Topical passages linked to Numbers 5:16 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.

Leviticus 1:3 "'If his offering is a burnt offering from the herd, he shall offer a male without blemish. He shall offer it at the door of the Tent of Meeting, that he may be accepted before Yahweh.
Jeremiah 17:10 I, Yahweh, search the mind, I try the heart, even to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings.
Hebrews 13:4 Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the bed be undefiled: but God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterers.
Revelation 2:22–23 Behold, I will throw her into a bed, and those who commit adultery with her into great oppression, unless they repent of her works.

Cross-references courtesy of OpenBible.info (CC BY 4.0).

Hebrew and Greek witnesses Masoretic Hebrew ↔ Greek Septuagint

The same verse in the two great witnesses to the Old Testament, shown verse-for-verse.

These are two independent witnesses, not word-aligned to each other, and the Septuagint is shown in lemma (dictionary) form.

Hebrew Numbers 5:16 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

וְהִקְרִ֥יב אֹתָ֖הּ הַכֹּהֵ֑ן וְהֶֽעֱמִדָ֖הּ לִפְנֵ֥י יְהוָֽה

The priest shall bring her near, and set her before Yahweh;

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX Numbers 5:16 Septuagint · lemma form

καί προςἄγω αὐτός ὁ ἱερεύς καί ἵστημι αὐτός ἔναντι κύριος

And the priest shall bring her, and cause her to stand before the Lord.

LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) · Public Domain

Hebrew: Westminster Leningrad Codex (CC BY 4.0). Greek: Septuagint (public domain); English from LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) (Public Domain). How the Septuagint differs from the Hebrew →

Targum (Aramaic paraphrase)

The Targum is the ancient Jewish Aramaic paraphrase of the Hebrew Scriptures — an interpretive translation, not the Hebrew text itself. Onkelos (literal) and Pseudo-Jonathan (expansive) render the Torah, and Jonathan the Prophets. Coverage is partial: where no permissively-licensed English translation exists for a verse, only the Aramaic is shown. This is verse-level text, not a word-by-word alignment to the Hebrew.

Targum Onkelos Torah (Genesis–Deuteronomy)

וִיקָרֵב יָתַהּ כַּהֲנָא וִיקִימִנַהּ קֳדָם יְיָ

(no public-domain English translation for this verse)

Targum Onkelos — Aramaic: “Onkelos Genesis” (public domain); “Onkelos Exodus” (public domain); “Onkelos Leviticus” (public domain); “Onkelos Numbers” (public domain); “Onkelos Deuteronomy” (public domain). English: “Sefaria Community Translation” (CC0 1.0 (public-domain dedication)); “J.W. Etheridge. The Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan Ben Uzziel on the Pentateuch. London: Longmans, Green, 1862” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan Torah (Genesis–Deuteronomy)

וִיקָרֵב יָתָהּ כַּהֲנָא וִיקִימִינָהּ קֳדָם יְיָ

And the priest shall bring her near, and cause her to stand before the Lord.

Targum Pseudo-Jonathan — Aramaic: “Targum Jonathan on Genesis” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Exodus” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Leviticus” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Numbers” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Deuteronomy” (public domain). English: “The Targum of Jonathan ben Uzziel, trans. J. W. Etheridge, London, 1862” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.

Commentary

Notes on Numbers 5:16 from classic Christian and Jewish commentators (each source and its license shown beneath its notes). The classic Christian expositions comment on the surrounding passage and are grouped to its opening verse, so a note may address several verses; the Jewish commentaries on the Tanakh (Rashi and others) are per-verse, so they appear only where the commentator wrote on this verse.

Lemma curates 59 commentaries, every one of them public domain or Creative Commons licensed, each selected and text-cleaned for this edition rather than reprinted as found. About our sources →

Trapp's Complete Commentary

John Trapp

Num 5:16 And the priest shall bring her near, and set her before the LORD:

Ver. 16. Set her before the Lord.] Whose the judgment was; that, if guilty, she might be scared from submitting herself to this trial; since God knows all our thefts.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne

16. before Jehovah] Probably at the altar of burnt-offering; it was impossible for her to be admitted into the Tabernacle.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

John Gill's Exposition

And the priest shall bring her near,.... Or "offer it", as the Vulgate Latin version, that is, the offering of jealousy:

and set her before the Lord; or "it", the offering; for which the Tigurine version is more express,"let the priest offer that sacrifice, and set that before the Lord,''for the setting of the woman before the Lord is spoken of in Num 5:18.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations

i.e. the woman; but of her he speaks, Num 5:18; or it, i.e. the offering, which is last spoken of, so the feminine gender is put for the masculine or the neuter, of both which we have instances.

Before the Lord, i.e. before the sanctuary where the ark was.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Whedon's Commentary on the Bible

Daniel D. Whedon

16. Bring her near — The pronoun her may in the Hebrew be translated it, and refer to the offering, since the woman is presented in Num_5:18, and since it was the office of the priest to present unto Jehovah all offerings.

Before the Lord — “Before the Lord” here relates to the altar for burnt offerings before the door of the tabernacle.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The Pulpit Commentary

Before the Lord. Either at the brazen altar or at the door of the tabernacle.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

John Wesley's Explanatory Notes

Before the Lord - That is, before the sanctuary where the ark was.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

unfoldingWord translationNotes

Door43 World Missions Community

near and place her before Yahweh

"in the presence of Yahweh." The priest would bring her near the altar. AT: "near the altar and place her in the presence of Yahweh" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)

translationWords

Yahweh

holy

tabernacle

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

Ibn Ezra

Rabbi Abraham ibn Ezra

The kohein shall bring it – the meal offering – near.

And station it before Hashem – before the Altar.

Ibn Ezra on the Tanakh — English translations: “Sefaria Community Translation” (CC0 1.0 (public-domain dedication)); “Yalkut, Sifsei Chachomim Chumash, Metsudah Publications, 2009” (CC BY 4.0); and “Commentary of Ibn Ezra on Isaiah - trans. by M. Friedlander, 1873” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.

Lesson kit

Teaching starters — assembled from the data on this page, not authored interpretation. Every prompt links to the verse data it draws on. Edit before teaching.

Numbers, in the Pentateuch, opens this verse with 6 words (6 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is qârab (“to approach”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

What does “to approach” (qârab) contribute to the verse as a whole?
Leviticus 1:3 shares this passage’s theme. How do the two illuminate each other?
The translations on this page render this verse differently — a whole-verse word diff, not a word-by-word alignment. What might account for the different wordings?
The verb «וְהִקְרִ֥יב» is Hiphil Sequential Perfect. How does its form color the action?
Reading how Trapp's Complete Commentary and The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges read this verse, where do the two commentators agree and where do they part?

Things to notice

This verse counts 6 Hebrew ↔ 10 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 9 words in this verse.
6 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 6 words in this verse.