Numbers 11:20
עַד׀ חֹדֶשׁ יָמִים עַד אֲשֶׁר־יֵצֵא מֵֽאַפְּכֶם וְהָיָה לָכֶם לְזָרָא יַעַן כִּֽי־מְאַסְתֶּם אֶת־יְהוָה אֲשֶׁר בְּקִרְבְּכֶם וַתִּבְכּוּ לְפָנָיו לֵאמֹר לָמָּה זֶּה יָצָאנוּ מִמִּצְרָֽיִם׃
✦ Hebrew interlinear
Tap a word to see its entry
✦ The same verse in five languages
עַ֣ד׀ חֹ֣דֶשׁ יָמִ֗ים עַ֤ד אֲשֶׁר־יֵצֵא֙ מֵֽאַפְּכֶ֔ם וְהָיָ֥ה לָכֶ֖ם לְזָרָ֑א יַ֗עַן כִּֽי־מְאַסְתֶּ֤ם אֶת־יְהוָה֙ אֲשֶׁ֣ר בְּקִרְבְּכֶ֔ם וַתִּבְכּ֤וּ לְפָנָיו֙ לֵאמֹ֔ר לָ֥מָּה זֶּ֖ה יָצָ֥אנוּ מִמִּצְרָֽיִם׃
ἓως μηνὸς ἡμερῶν φάγεσθε, ἕως ἀν’ ἐξέλθῃ ἐκ τῶν μυκτήρων ὑμῶν κρέα. καὶ ἔσται ὑμῖν εἰς χολέραν· ὅτι ἠπειθήσατε Κυρίῳ ὅς ἐστιν ἐν ὑμῖν, καὶ ἐκλαύσατε ἐναντίον αὐτοῦ λέγοντες Ἳνα τί ἠμὶ Αἰγύπτου ;
Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0
Latin (Vulgate)
sed usque ad mensem dierum, donec exeat per nares vestras, et vertatur in nauseam, eo quod repuleritis Dominum, qui in medio vestri est, et fleveritis coram eo, dicentes: Quare egressi sumus ex Ægypto?
sino un mes entero, hasta que les salga por las narices y les dé asco; porque han rechazado a Yehová, que está en medio de ustedes, y han llorado delante de él, diciendo: “¿Por qué tuvimos que salir de Egipto?”’”.
Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)
Sino hasta un mes de tiempo, hasta que os salga por las narices, y os sea en aborrecimiento: por cuanto menospreciasteis á Jehová que está en medio de vosotros, y llorasteis delante de él, diciendo: ¿ Para qué salimos acá de Egipto?
but for a whole month — until it comes out of your nostrils and makes you nauseous— because you have rejected the LORD, who is among you, and have cried out before Him, saying, ‘ Why did we ever leave Egypt?’”
✦ What the text says
Summary
The verse continues Yehovah's announcement of judgment: the people will eat meat for a full month until it becomes repulsive to them, "coming out of their noses." The reason given is that they rejected Yehovah, who is present among them, and wept before him asking why they left Egypt.
Key words
- me'astem ("you have rejected", H3988A) — qal perfect, 2nd person masculine plural, denoting a completed act of rejection or contempt already accomplished before this moment of speech.
- zara' ("a loathsome thing", H2214) — feminine singular noun, describing the eventual state the food will produce, following the preposition le ("into") indicating transformation or result.
- qirbechem ("your midst", H7130G construct + suffix) — construct noun with pronominal suffix, expressing Yehovah's location as literally "in the midst of you (plural)."
- ya'an ki ("because... for", H3282 + H3588A) — a double causal construction combining conjunction and particle, reinforcing the causal link between the people's rejection and the coming consequence.
- yatza'nu ("did we come out", H3318L) — qal perfect, 1st person plural, echoing the same root used earlier for the meat "coming out" (yetze', word 6), creating a lexical link between the physical expulsion of food and the people's own exodus from Egypt.
What the text says
The Hebrew sentence structure builds a chain of consequence using the sequential vav construction: first ad chodesh yamim ("until a month of days") sets the duration, then ad asher yetze' me'appechem ("until it comes out from your nose") specifies the endpoint, followed by ve-hayah lachem le-zara' ("and it will become for you into a loathsome thing") using the narrative vav to mark the resulting state. The causal clause introduced by ya'an ki explains why this will happen: me'astem et-Yehovah ("you have rejected Yehovah"), using the qal perfect to mark this rejection as an already-completed act preceding the divine response.
The phrase asher be-qirbechem ("who is in your midst") is a relative clause modifying Yehovah, asserting his presence spatially "within" the group. The final clause records direct speech introduced by the infinitive le'mor ("saying"), quoting the people's own question, lammah zeh yatza'nu mi-Mitzrayim ("why is this, we came out from Egypt"), where zeh ("this", H2088) functions as an emphatic demonstrative intensifying the interrogative lammah ("why").
Differences between versions
The LXX renders me'astem et-Yehovah ("you have rejected Yehovah") as ēpeithēsate Kyriō ("you disobeyed the Lord"), shifting from the semantic field of rejection/contempt to disobedience. The LXX also adds krea ("meat") explicitly after ek tōn myktērōn hymōn ("from your nostrils"), an addition not present in the Hebrew noun phrase, which only has the verb yetze' ("it will come out") without a stated subject noun at that point. The Vulgate's vertatur in nauseam ("it turns to nausea") and the LXX's eis choleran ("into cholera/bile") both interpret le-zara' ("into a loathsome thing", H2214) differently, describing physical sickness rather than the more general "loathsome" sense of the Hebrew noun.
This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.