Numeri 33:36 (Numbers 33:36)

Posted on May 30, 2006 by Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus

Nm 33:36 Inde profecti, venerunt in desertum Sin, hæc est Cades.

Setting out from there, they came into the desert of Sin; this is Cades.

# Latin Gloss Grammar Tag
1 Inde from there ADV.INVAR
2 profecti setting out NOM.PL.M.PERF.DEP.PTCP
3 venerunt they came 3PL.PERF.ACT.IND
4 in into PREP+ACC
5 desertum desert ACC.SG.N
6 Sin Zin INDECL
7 hæc this NOM.SG.F.DEM
8 est is 3SG.PRES.ACT.IND
9 Cades Kadesh INDECL

Syntax

Main Clause: Inde profecti, venerunt in desertum Sin continues the itinerary of the sons of Israel. The sons of Israel are the understood subject. profecti describes their departure from the preceding station, while venerunt is the finite main verb describing their arrival in the desert of Sin.

Departure: Inde profecti means “setting out from there.” Inde is an adverb expressing motion from a place and refers back to Asiongaber, the preceding encampment. profecti is a perfect deponent participle agreeing with the understood masculine plural subject.

Main Verb: venerunt means “they came.” It is third person plural, perfect active indicative, with the sons of Israel as its understood subject. The perfect tense presents the arrival as a completed stage of the itinerary.

Destination: in desertum Sin expresses motion into the desert of Sin. Because in denotes movement toward or into a destination, it governs the accusative desertum. The indeclinable proper name Sin specifies which desert is meant.

Identifying Clause: hæc est Cades means “this is Cades.” hæc is the nominative singular feminine demonstrative subject, referring to the location just mentioned, while est is the copular verb and Cades is the predicate proper name. The feminine form hæc refers conceptually to the place or locality identified as Cades rather than agreeing with the neuter noun desertum.

Morphology

  1. Inde — Lemma: inde; Part of Speech: Adverb; Form: Invariable adverb of place expressing source; Function: Modifies profecti and indicates the point of departure; Translation: “from there”; Notes: In the continuing itinerary, it refers back to Asiongaber, the station occupied immediately before this departure.
  2. profecti — Lemma: proficiscor; Part of Speech: Perfect participle of a deponent verb; Form: Nominative plural masculine, perfect deponent participle, third conjugation; Function: Circumstantial participle agreeing with the understood subject, the sons of Israel; Translation: “setting out”; Notes: Because proficiscor is deponent, profecti has active meaning despite its passive morphology and describes the departure preceding the arrival in the desert of Sin.
  3. venerunt — Lemma: venio; Part of Speech: Verb; Form: Third person plural, perfect active indicative, fourth conjugation; Function: Main verb with the sons of Israel understood as subject; Translation: “they came”; Notes: The perfect tense presents the arrival in the desert of Sin as a completed event in the itinerary.
  4. in — Lemma: in; Part of Speech: Preposition; Form: Invariable preposition governing the accusative; Function: Introduces the destination of venerunt; Translation: “into”; Notes: With the verb of motion venerunt, in expresses movement into a destination and therefore governs the accusative.
  5. desertum — Lemma: desertum; Part of Speech: Noun; Form: Accusative singular neuter, second declension; Function: Object of the directional preposition in; Translation: “desert”; Notes: It designates the geographical region into which the sons of Israel came and is specified by the proper name Sin.
  6. Sin — Lemma: Sin; Part of Speech: Proper noun; Form: Indeclinable geographical name; Function: Specifies desertum; Translation: “Sin”; Notes: The proper name identifies the desert reached at this stage of the itinerary and remains morphologically unchanged.
  7. hæc — Lemma: hic, hæc, hoc; Part of Speech: Demonstrative pronoun; Form: Nominative singular feminine; Function: Subject of est; Translation: “this”; Notes: The feminine demonstrative points to the locality just mentioned and introduces its identification as Cades.
  8. est — Lemma: sum; Part of Speech: Verb; Form: Third person singular, present active indicative, irregular; Function: Copular verb linking hæc with Cades; Translation: “is”; Notes: It forms the identifying statement that equates the locality with Cades.
  9. Cades — Lemma: Cades; Part of Speech: Proper noun; Form: Indeclinable place-name, nominative in syntactic function; Function: Predicate nominative with est, identifying the place indicated by hæc; Translation: “Cades”; Notes: The proper name supplies the identification of the locality reached by the sons of Israel.

 

About Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus

Born around 346 A.D. in Stridon, St. Jerome was a scholar fluent in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew whose ascetic discipline and deep engagement with Scripture prepared him for a monumental task: translating the Bible into Latin. Commissioned by Pope Damasus I around 382 A.D., Jerome began by revising the flawed Old Latin Gospels, then expanded his work to the entire Bible. For the New Testament, he corrected Latin texts using Greek manuscripts; for the Old Testament, he translated most books directly from Hebrew—a controversial but principled choice. His final Psalter, however, followed the Greek Septuagint tradition for liturgical use. This composite translation, later known as the Vulgate (editio vulgata), became the authoritative biblical text of the Western Church, formally endorsed at the Council of Trent in 1546. The Vulgate’s influence extends beyond theology into textual criticism and Latin education. As one of the earliest translations grounded in original-language scholarship, it offers a vital witness to the state of biblical texts in late antiquity. Jerome’s lexical and syntactic decisions are studied to trace manuscript history and assess variant readings. Its elegant Latin, consistent in grammar and rich in vocabulary, became a model for medieval and Renaissance learning, bridging classical and ecclesiastical Latin. More than a translation, the Vulgate helped define Christian doctrine, preserved the Latin language, and laid essential groundwork for the critical study of Scripture—remaining indispensable to students of Latin, theology, and textual history.
This entry was posted in Numeri. Bookmark the permalink.

Comments are closed.