Numbers 14:22

Summary

Numbers 14:22 lists the people who witnessed Yehovah's glory and signs in Egypt and in the wilderness, yet repeatedly tested him and failed to obey his voice. The verse forms part of a longer conditional/oath sentence that continues into verse 23, where the consequence for this generation is stated.

Key words

• ki ("for", H3588A) — a conditional/subordinating particle opening the clause; it introduces the description of "the men" whose fate is decided in the following verse.
• ro'im ("saw", H7200G) — qal participle, masculine plural, with the article (ha-); functions as a substantive relative clause, "the ones who see/have seen," describing continued or characteristic action rather than a single past event.
• kevodi ("my glory", H3519) — construct noun + 1st person suffix (-i, H9020), literally "glory-of-me," marking the glory as belonging to the speaker.
• va-yenassu ("and they tested", H5254G) — piel narrative verb, 3rd person plural; the piel stem gives an intensive nuance ("put to the test" repeatedly), and the narrative vav links this action sequentially to what precedes.
• shame'u be-koli ("they listened to my voice", H8085H + H6963A) — qal perfect shame'u ("they heard/listened") joined with the preposition be- ("in/to") before koli ("my voice" + suffix); the verb-plus-preposition combination is the standard idiom for obeying rather than merely hearing.

What the text says

The clause opens with ki (H3588A), a particle that here subordinates the entire description of "the men" to a further statement (continued in v.23), rather than functioning as a simple "for/because." The subject is khol ha-'anashim ("all the men," H3605 + H0582), further specified by the participial phrase ha-ro'im et-kevodi ve-et-'ototai ("the ones who saw my glory and my signs," H7200G + H3519 + H0226G), both objects marked by the untranslated direct-object particle 'et (H0853). The two nouns kevodi and 'ototai both carry the 1st-person suffix -i (H9020), stressing that both glory and signs belong to the speaker.

The relative clause 'asher 'asiti be-Mitzrayim u-va-midbar ("which I did in Egypt and in the wilderness," H0834A + H6213A) specifies where these signs occurred, using the qal perfect 'asiti for a completed action.

The narrative continues with va-yenassu 'oti zeh 'eser pe'amim ("and they tested me these ten times"), where the piel stem of nasah (H5254G) intensifies the testing, and zeh 'eser pe'amim ("this ten times," H2088 + H6235 + H6471) functions as an idiomatic numerical expression. The final clause, ve-lo shame'u be-koli ("and they did not listen to my voice," H3808 + H8085H + H6963A), uses the shama' + be- construction, an idiom denoting obedience rather than simple auditory perception.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew ki (H3588A) is rendered by the LXX as ὃτι ("that/because") and by the Vulgate as "Attamen" ("nevertheless"), reflecting different ways of handling this subordinating particle at the start of the sentence. The Hebrew idiom zeh 'eser pe'amim ("this ten times") appears in the LXX as τοῦτο δέκατον ("this tenth [time]"), a slightly different numerical framing, while the Vulgate has "jam per decem vices" ("already for ten times"), closer to the Hebrew sense. The idiom shame'u be-koli ("they listened to my voice") is rendered by the LXX with a genitive construction (εἰσήκουσάν... τῆς φωνῆς) and by the Vulgate with a dative ("obedierunt voci meae"), both expressing obedience but through different grammatical cases than the Hebrew preposition be-.