Numbers 11:32

Summary

The verse describes the people rising to gather quail for a full day, night, and the following day, with even the smallest amount collected being ten chomarim ("homers", H2563C). Afterward, they spread the quail out around the camp.

Key words

• va-yaqom ("and it arose", H6965B) — qal narrative verb, third person masculine singular, opening the sequence of events with "and then the people arose."
• ha-mam'it ("the one doing little", H4591) — hiphil (causative) participle, masculine singular, functioning as a substantive: "the one who caused [himself] to have little," i.e., the person who gathered the least.
• asaf ("he gathered", H0622) — qal perfect, third person masculine singular, marking a completed action tied to ha-mam'it, contrasting with the earlier narrative verb va-ya'as'fu ("and they gathered", H0622) which describes the collective ongoing action.
• yish'techu ... shatoach ("they spread out ... completely spreading", H7849) — qal narrative verb followed by an infinitive absolute of the same root. The infinitive absolute intensifies or confirms the verbal action, a construction that has no direct one-word English equivalent.
• sviyvot ("around", H5439G) — plural construct noun, "the surroundings of," governing ha-machaneh ("the camp", H4264).

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence chains four narrative (vav-consecutive) verbs — va-yaqom ("and it arose"), va-ya'as'fu ("and they gathered"), and va-yish'techu ("and they spread out") — which carry the main storyline forward in sequence. Between the first and second of these verbs, the text inserts a time expression built from three parallel construct phrases, each headed by kol ("all", H3605): "all the day, that one" (kol ha-yom ha-hu), "and all the night" (ve-khol ha-laylah), "and all the day of the next day" (ve-khol yom ha-machorat). This threefold repetition of kol marks the duration as continuous and total rather than intermittent.

The clause about the minimal gatherer uses a participle, ha-mam'it, from the hiphil stem of the same root behind "little/few," functioning here as a noun phrase ("the one who did little"), followed by a qal perfect verb asaf ("he gathered"). This creates a small independent clause embedded in the larger sentence, specifying that even at the lowest individual yield, the amount was asarah chomarim ("ten homers", H6235 + H2563C).

The final verb, va-yish'techu, is reinforced by its own infinitive absolute, shatoach, both from the root shatach ("to spread out", H7849). This doubling of the same root — finite verb plus infinitive absolute — is a construction that emphasizes or confirms the spreading action; English versions render it with a single verb ("spread out") without reflecting the doubled root.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders va-yish'techu ... shatoach ("they spread out... completely spreading") as ἔσφαξαν ("they slaughtered"), describing a different action (killing) rather than spreading out the quail, which the Hebrew and the Vulgate (siccaverunt, "they dried") both indicate as a drying/spreading process.