Parashah Parsing Practice: Naso

Shalom, Hebrew learners!

This week’s parashah is Naso, which is a plural imperative meaning to lift up, raise, or carry. Naso is the second parashah in the book of Bamidbar (Numbers): 4.21-7.89.

We’ll be parsing a pasuk from a rather famous section near the middle of the parashah: Bamidbar 6.27 / במדבר ו.כז This famous section (shown in full below) has a few different names: the Aharonic blessing, the priestly blessing, or in Hebrew - ברכת הכהנים - the Blessing of the Kohanim, verses 24 (כד) through 26 (כו). The verse we’ll be parsing is highlighted at the end:

כב וַיְדַבֵּ֥ר יְיָ֖ אֶל־מֹשֶׁ֥ה לֵּאמֹֽר:

כג דַּבֵּ֤ר אֶֽל־אַֽהֲרֹן֙ וְאֶל־בָּנָ֣יו לֵאמֹ֔ר כֹּ֥ה תְבָֽרֲכ֖וּ אֶת־בְּנֵ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל אָמ֖וֹר לָהֶֽם:

כד יְבָֽרֶכְךָ֥ יְיָ֖ וְיִשְׁמְרֶֽךָ:

כה יָאֵ֨ר יְיָ֧ ׀ פָּנָ֛יו אֵלֶ֖יךָ וִֽיחֻנֶּֽךָּ:

כו יִשָּׂ֨א יְיָ֤ ׀ פָּנָיו֙ אֵלֶ֔יךָ וְיָשֵׂ֥ם לְךָ֖ שָׁלֽוֹם:

כז וְשָׂמ֥וּ אֶת־שְׁמִ֖י עַל־בְּנֵ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל וַֽאֲנִ֖י אֲבָֽרְכֵֽם:

Transliteration:

Kaf zayin V’samu et-shmi al-bnei yisrael va’ani avar'kheym :

The letters Kaf Zayin indicate the pasuk number. Kaf = 20 + Zayin = 7, so this is verse 27. (I explained how this verse numbering works in my post on Parashat Aharei Mot-Kedoshim.)

V’samu is a VERB

Root: שֹ.י.ם to put, place, or set

Binyan: Pa’al

Perfect, 3rd person plural*

Prefixed with a reversing vav**

Translation: “They will put, place, or set”**

*Remember that in the perfect the 3rd person plural is used for both masculine or feminine, so no gender is necessarily indicated here.

**A reversing vav on a perfect verb looks identical to a regular conjunctive vav (translated as “and” or “but”). The context here indicates to us that this is a reversing vav and thus the tense of the verb is reversed, so we translate it like an imperfect verb.

Et is a word without any direct translation into English. It doesn’t even have a core meaning in Hebrew. It it simply a marker. It tells you that the word directly following the et (and sometimes even joined to it with a makkef) is the definite direct object of the verb.

Definite means one of three things:

1. The noun is a regular noun that has a definite article (usually hey + patah + a dagesh in the next letter) attached to the beginning of the word. We translate the definite article as “the”.

E.g.: “The sword,” “the horse,” or “the mountain”

OR

2. The noun is a proper noun. It may be someone’s name or a place name.

E.g.: “Jonathan,” “Jerusalem,” or “Egypt”

OR

3. The noun has a pronominal possessive suffix attached to the end. Simply put, the noun belongs to someone.

E.g. “Her shawl,” “Their tent,” or “My shoe”

When a noun that is definite in any one of these three ways is also the object of a verb, it will be marked in ancient Hebrew by the word et. Why? Because, in ancient Hebrew, words can move around in a sentence and show up in any order, marking the object of the verb helps clear up any confusion about who is doing what in any given setting.

Et precedes the definite direct object almost all of the time. There are very few exceptions to this rule (almost all, if not all, of them in poetry), which is really refreshing. This rule is super reliable, and for students of Hebrew, learning to expect the et in front of the definite direct object should be like expecting that if you spit into the wind it will land in your face. It’s that kind of reliable.

The noun here is שֵׁם, a masculine singular noun meaning “name.” As indicated in teal, the noun is suffixed with a first person pronominal possessive ending - a hireq yud*.

Translation: “my name”

*There are other first person parts of speech in Hebrew that end in a hireq yud, which hopefully will help you remember this one:

I, myself: אֲנִי

Perfect 1st person verbs (I did "X" in the past): שָמַרְתִּי, אָכַלְתִּי, הָלַכָתִּי

From right to left: I guarded, I ate, I walked/went

Can you think of any other examples?

The preposition עַל is usually translated on or upon, and as a preposition it begins the prepositional phrase al-bnei Yisrael.

The original noun of בְּנֵי is בָּנִים, the plural of בֵּן. B’nei is the smikhut or construct form of banim, translated as “sons of”. Ben literally means “son” and its plural, banim, can be translated as the gender neutral or inclusive “children”. However, in this very common phrase it is preferrable, in my opinion, not to translate בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל as “Children of Israel,” or even “Sons of Israel.” Granted there are places in the Torah where Hashem refers to the Israelite nation as “my children,” and it is reasonable to translate banim there as children. However, outside of those instances, the people referred to in these verses are not children, nor are they the original sons of Israel (Jacob). They are descendents of Israel/Jacob and they make up the Israelite nation, or the Nation of Israel. It is a curious moniker to be sure, to refer to an entire nation of men, women, and children, as children of one person, and it cries out to be interpreted and understood further.

My preferred translation: "upon the people of Israel"

The vav here is a regular conjunctive vav, translated as “and”. The vowel has changed from what we would expect: וְ because of the Alef. Alef is one of the five guttural letters (Alef, Hey, Het, Ayin, and Resh), whose presence in a word can cause vowel changes, mostly due to the fact that the gutturals cannot take a dagesh forte (a dagesh that in essence doubles the sound that the letter makes). Spend a minute trying to double the sound of a silent letter or one pronounced deep in the throat and you’ll understand why these letters cannot take this dagesh. So when one of these letters should have had a dagesh forte (as in this case, where it would be added to the next letter after the vav conjunctive), the dagesh is not added and the vowel changes to reflect that. This is why we get va’ani in this case.

Ani אֲנִי is a pronoun, 1st person (common) plural. We translate it as “I”.

Translation: "And I"

Avar’khem is a VERB

Root: ב.ר.ך to kneel, bless

Binyan: Pi’el

Imperfect, 1st person singular with a 3rd masculine plural object suffix

Translation: “I will bless them”

Now that we have parsed all the components of the pasuk, we can attempt a translation:

כז וְשָׂמוּ אֶת־שְׁמִי עַל־בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל וַאֲנִי אֲבָרְכֵם:

Kaf zayin V’samu et-shmi al-bnei yisrael va’ani avar'kheym

Literal: And they will put/place/set my name upon the people of Israel, and I will bless them.

Better: Thus will they set my name upon the people of Israel, so that I may bless them.

Take a look at some translations sourced from Sefaria:

The Contemporary Torah, JPS 2006: “Thus they shall link My name with the people of Israel, and I will bless them.”

The Five Books of Moses, Everett Fox, 1995: “So are they to put my name upon the Children of Israel, that I myself may bless them.”

The Koren Jerusalem Bible: “And they shall put my name upon the children of Yisra’el; and I will bless them.”

As you can see, each translation is slightly different, but they all have some similarities. My hope is that you realize that no translation perfectly captures the essence of the ancient Hebrew. How could it? And that every translation and translator has their own reasons for the choices that they made. Each translation, if done in good faith by people who know what they're doing and have the appropriate training and resources, has its positives, and each will be missing something. Translating ancient Hebrew is challenging. Understanding what the text originally meant is possibly impossible and probably reductive. Still we must try...

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