Numbers 14:10

Summary

The verse reports that the entire congregation (ha-'edah) spoke of stoning certain men, immediately followed by the appearance of the glory of Yehovah at the Tent of Meeting, visible to all the sons of Israel. The two clauses are joined by a simple conjunction, presenting the threat and the divine appearance as sequential events in the narrative.

Key words

• va-yomeru ("and they said", H0559) — qal narrative verb, third person masculine plural, opening the clause in standard Hebrew narrative sequence ("and then they said").
• kol ("all", H3605) — construct noun meaning "totality of," here linking to ha-'edah to specify the whole assembly as subject.
• li-rgom ("to stone", H7275) — qal infinitive with prefixed preposition li ("to"), expressing the purpose or content of what was said: the infinitive construction indicates an intended action rather than a completed one.
• kevod ("glory of", H3519) — masculine singular construct noun, grammatically bound to YHWH, forming the phrase "glory of Yehovah" as the subject of the next verb.
• nir'ah ("it appeared", H7200) — niphal perfect, third person masculine singular. The niphal stem marks the verb as passive/reflexive in form: the glory "was seen" or "showed itself," rather than an agent actively displaying it.

What the text says

The verse divides into two balanced clauses joined by the conjunction u- ("and"). The first clause has kol ha-'edah ("all the congregation") as subject of the verb va-yomeru ("they said"), followed by the infinitive construction li-rgom 'otam ba-avanim ("to stone them with the stones"). The infinitive with prefixed li expresses purpose or intended content of speech — grammatically the congregation "said" the stoning, meaning they proposed or resolved on it; the Hebrew itself does not use a verb of "threatening" but a verb of "speaking" combined with the purposive infinitive.

The second clause pivots on kevod YHWH ("glory of Yehovah") as subject of the niphal verb nir'ah ("it appeared" / "it was seen"). The niphal stem here signals that the glory itself is the grammatical subject undergoing the action of becoming visible — it is not stated who reveals it, only that it "appears." The location is marked by be-'ohel mo'ed ("at the tent of meeting"), and the recipients of this appearance are specified by 'el kol benei Yisra'el ("to all the sons of Israel"), using the preposition 'el ("to/toward").

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the location with the addition ἐν νεφέλῃ ("in a cloud"), a phrase not present in the Hebrew text, which reads simply be-'ohel mo'ed ("at the tent of meeting") without mention of a cloud. The Vulgate uses "super tectum foederis" ("over the roof/covering of the covenant"), differing in phrasing from the Hebrew "tent of meeting" ('ohel mo'ed) though conveying a similar location. The Hebrew verb va-yomeru ("they said") is rendered in the BSB as "threatened," an interpretive expansion beyond the base meaning "said" found in the Hebrew and reflected more literally in the LXX's εἶπεν ("said").