Deuteronomy 32:50

Summary

Deuteronomy 32:50 commands "you" (Moses, addressed in the wider context) to die on the mountain he is about to ascend and to "be gathered to your people," using the death of his brother Aaron on Mount Hor as the precedent. The verse pairs two imperatives describing Moses' own death with a narrated (completed) account of Aaron's death using the same two verbs.

Key words

• Mut ("die", H4191) — qal imperative, 2nd person masculine singular; a direct command form, not a prediction.
• he'aSef ("be gathered", H0622) — niphal (passive/reflexive) imperative; the passive voice frames the "gathering" as something that happens to the subject rather than an action he performs.
• met ("he died", H4191) — same root as Mut above, but qal perfect, describing Aaron's death as a completed past event, contrasting with the imperative form used for Moses.
• yye'aSef ("he was gathered", H0622) — same root as he'aSef, but niphal narrative (vav-consecutive) form, continuing the story of Aaron rather than commanding an action.
• 'ammeka / 'ammav ("your people" / "his people", H5971B) — construct noun with pronominal suffix, marking whose "people" each figure is gathered to (Moses' own people vs. Aaron's own people).

What the text says

The verse is built on a grammatical contrast between command and narrative. The first half addresses Moses directly with two imperatives, Mut ("die") and he'aSef ("be gathered"), both referring to actions Moses himself will undergo. The niphal form of he'aSef indicates that "gathering" is not something Moses actively does but something done to him — the grammar keeps him passive in this event.

The comparative clause introduced by ka'aSher ("as/just as") shifts into narrative mode using the same two verbal roots (H4191 for "die," H0622 for "gathered") but in different forms: met is a qal perfect (a completed fact about Aaron), and yye'aSef is a niphal narrative form (vav-consecutive), the standard way Hebrew narrates sequential past events. This creates a structural echo — Moses is commanded to do (or undergo) exactly what is narrated as already having happened to Aaron — while keeping the verb tense/mood distinct between address (imperative) and report (narrative past).

Differences between versions

The Vulgate restructures the sentence: instead of a direct imperative "die," it uses a relative clause "quem conscendens" ("which having ascended") followed by the future "jungeris" ("you will be joined"), turning the Hebrew command form into a future-tense description. The LXX preserves the imperative sense more closely with τελεύτα ("die!") and προστέθητι ("be joined!"), matching the Hebrew's two-imperative structure more directly than the Vulgate does.