Numbers 11:29

Summary

Moses responds to a report (Joshua's concern about Eldad and Medad prophesying) with a rhetorical question challenging jealousy on his behalf, followed by a wish that all of Yehovah's people would be prophets and receive the divine spirit.

Key words

• m.ka.Ne' ("zealous", H7065) — piel participle, masculine singular, preceded by the interrogative ha (H9008); the piel stem intensifies the root, giving "acting zealous/jealous," framed as a question directed at Moses' interlocutor.
• yi.Ten ("will he give", H5414H) — qal imperfect, appears twice (lines 13 and 19) with different senses depending on syntax: the first occurrence is part of an idiomatic wish-formula, the second introduces a conditional clause.
• ne.vi.'Im ("prophets", H5030) — masculine plural noun, functioning as predicate complement to "all the people of Yehovah," expressing a hypothetical collective state.
• ru.Ch ("spirit", H7307G) — feminine singular construct noun with the suffix o ("his"), forming "his spirit," the object that Yehovah would place upon the people.
• ki- ("that/if", H3588A) — subordinating particle introducing the conditional clause dependent on the wish expressed by mi yiTen.

What the text says

The verse opens with the narrative va-yomer ("and he said", H0559/H9001) introducing Moses' direct speech. The first clause is a question formed by the interrogative particle ha (H9008) attached to the piel participle m.ka.Ne' ("zealous", H7065), followed by the independent pronoun 'a.Tah ("you", H0859A) and the phrase li ("for me", H9005+H9030, literally "to me"). This produces a construction like "Are you (the one) zealous for me?" — a question addressed to Moses' interlocutor about jealousy on Moses' behalf.

The second part begins with the idiom u-mi yiTen ("and who will give", H9002+H4310+H5414H), a fixed Hebrew expression of wishing ("would that..."), followed by the construct chain kol-'am Yehovah ("all the people of Yehovah", H3605+H5971A+H3068G) as subject, and ne.vi.'Im ("prophets", H5030) as predicate — expressing the wish that the entire people be prophets.

The final clause is introduced by ki ("that/if", H3588A), a subordinating particle here functioning within the wish-construction, followed by a second yiTen (qal imperfect, H5414H) with Yehovah as subject, the object marker 'et (H0853), and the construct ru.Ch-o ("his spirit", H7307G+H9023) as direct object, closing with 'alei-hem ("upon them", H5921A+H9038). The repetition of the same verb form yiTen in two different syntactic roles (wish-formula, then conditional) is a feature visible in the Hebrew that is not always reproduced identically across translations.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the opening question as Μὴ ζηλοῖς σὺ ἐμέ ("Are you jealous of me?"), using a negative interrogative construction (Μὴ) that implies an expected negative answer, whereas the Hebrew ha-mekanne' 'atah li is a neutral interrogative without built-in expectation. The Vulgate's Quid... aemularis pro me? ("Why are you jealous for me?") treats the phrase as an open question rather than a yes/no interrogative. In the second clause, the Vulgate reads ut omnis populus prophetet ("that all the people would prophesy"), using a verbal form, while the Hebrew and LXX both use a nominal predicate ("prophets"/prophetas) rather than a verb.