Numbers 11:9

Summary

Numbers 11:9 describes the timing and manner of the manna's appearance: it fell together with the dew that descended on the camp during the night. The verse links two simultaneous downward movements — the dew coming down and the manna coming down upon it.

Key words

• redet ("came down", H3381) — infinitive construct form of the verb for "descend," used with the preposition be to mean "when it came down," marking the temporal clause.
• tal ("dew", H2919) — masculine singular noun, the subject of the first descending action.
• laylah ("night", H3915) — masculine singular noun functioning adverbially, specifying that the dew's descent happened at night.
• yered ("it came down", H3381) — imperfect form of the same root as redet, describing the manna's recurring or ongoing descent as a parallel, repeated action.
• 'alav ("upon it/him", H5921A + suffix) — preposition with a third-person masculine singular pronominal suffix, referring back to the dew (or the ground it covered), indicating the manna fell "upon it."

What the text says

The verse is built as two parallel clauses joined by u ("and", H9002). The first clause uses an infinitive construct, bе-redet ("when it came down"), to set up a temporal frame — the descent of ha-tal ("the dew") upon ha-machaneh ("the camp"), occurring laylah ("at night"). The second clause shifts to a finite imperfect verb, yered ("it came down"), with ha-man ("the manna") as its subject. This grammatical shift — from infinitive to imperfect — marks the transition from setting the temporal condition to narrating the resulting or accompanying action.

The final word, 'alav ("upon it"), uses a masculine singular suffix that refers back to the antecedent noun in the sentence. Because tal ("dew") is masculine, the suffix most naturally points to the dew itself, expressing that the manna descended "upon it" — that is, together with or onto the dew. The repetition of the same root, √yrd ("to descend," H3381), in both redet and yered creates a linguistic echo between the two events, reinforcing their simultaneity without using an explicit word for "together" or "same time."

Differences between versions

The LXX (Septuagint) renders the Hebrew infinitive construction with a temporal clause using hotan ("whenever") and shifts the second verb to imperfect katebainen ("was coming down"), preserving the durative sense. The Vulgate uses cumque descenderet ("and when it descended") for the first clause and adds pariter ("likewise" or "together"), an explicit adverb of simultaneity not present as a separate word in the Hebrew text, where the parallel structure alone conveys that meaning.