Numbers 11:18

Summary

Moses is told to command the people to consecrate themselves because tomorrow they will eat meat, since they wept "in the ears of Yehovah" complaining about the lack of meat and claiming things were better in Egypt. The verse ends with Yehovah's decision to give meat, followed by the people eating it.

Key words

• hitqaddeshu ("sanctify yourselves", H6942G) — hithpael (reflexive) imperative, plural: a direct command that the people perform the action on/for themselves, not something done to them.
• bekhitem ("you have wept", H1058) — qal perfect, plural: marks the weeping as a completed act prior to the moment of speaking, giving the grounds (ki, "for") for what follows.
• 'ozne ("ears of", H0241H) — feminine dual noun in construct state, linked to YHWH: the dual form reflects the paired body part "ears," used idiomatically for something being heard.
• ya'akhilenu ("will he cause to eat", H0398) — hiphil (causative) imperfect: the causative stem shifts the basic verb "to eat" into "to cause to eat / feed," embedded in the people's quoted complaint.
• tov ("it was good", H2895) — qal perfect, third person: states a completed past condition ("it was good for us"), part of the people's remembered claim about Egypt.

What the text says

The verse is built as a command followed by a chain of sequential perfects (va-'akhaltem, va-natan, va-'akhaltem) that lay out a future sequence of events as if narrated: sanctify → eat meat → [reason given] → Yehovah gives meat → eat. This verb form, called sequential perfect, continues the logical/temporal flow begun by the initial imperative hitqaddeshu, so the whole verse reads as one connected chain of consequence rather than isolated statements.

The causal particle ki (H3588A) appears twice, first introducing the reason for the command ("because you have wept"), and second embedded inside the quoted speech itself ("for it was good for us in Egypt"), marking the people's own reasoning within their complaint. The phrase be'ozne YHWH ("in the ears of Yehovah") uses the dual construct noun 'ozne to depict the weeping as literally reaching Yehovah's hearing, a concrete idiom for being heard. Inside the quotation, the hiphil verb ya'akhilenu ("will he cause us to eat") shows the people speaking of meat-eating in causative terms — someone else must feed them — before the perfect tov ("it was good") recalls their past life in Egypt as a completed state.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew be'ozne YHWH ("in the ears of Yehovah") is rendered in the LXX as ἔναντι κυρίου ("before the Lord"), replacing the idiom of hearing with one of presence. The Vulgate inserts an explanatory clause not present in the Hebrous syntax, "ego enim audivi vos dicere" ("for I have heard you say"), making explicit in first person what the Hebrew expresses only through the people's own weeping "in the ears of" Yehovah. The Greek text at this point is also textually irregular (ψωκρέα is not a standard word), reflecting a corruption or truncation not matching the fuller Hebrew clause "who will give us meat to eat."