Numbers 16:18

Summary

Numbers 16:18 describes each of the rebel men taking his own censer, placing fire and incense in it, and then standing at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting. The verse ends by naming Moses and Aaron in connection with that same location, without a clearly repeated verb for them.

Key words

• machtato ("his censer", H4289) — construct noun + possessive suffix, showing each man used his own censer individually (paired with ish, H0376, "each one").
• 'esh ("fire", H0784) — object of yittenu ("they put", H5414), the material placed inside the censers.
• qetoret ("incense", H7004) — object of yasimu ("they set", H7760), placed on top of the fire already in the censers.
• vaya'amdu ("they stood", H5975) — qal narrative verb, 3rd person masculine plural, marking the next sequential action after the censer preparation.
• u-Moshe ve-Aharon ("and Moses and Aaron", H4872/H0175) — two proper names joined by the conjunction ve (H9002), appended at the very end of the verse without an explicit new verb.

What the text says

The verse is built as a chain of four narrative (vav-consecutive) verbs — yiqchu ("they took"), yittenu ("they put"), yasimu ("they set"), ya'amdu ("they stood") — each introduced by the narrative vav (H9001), which strings the actions together as a sequence: taking censers, putting fire in them, setting incense on the fire, then standing at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting (petach 'ohel mo'ed, a chain of construct nouns meaning "entrance of the tent of meeting").

The grammatically notable point is the final phrase, u-Moshe ve-Aharon. The subject of ya'amdu ("they stood") is grammatically 3rd person plural, referring back to ish ("each one") — the men with censers. The names Moses and Aaron are attached afterward with a simple conjunction, without a new finite verb of their own. This leaves the Hebrew syntax open: the phrase can be read either as extending the plural subject of "they stood" (so that Moses and Aaron are included among those standing), or as a separate, verbless notice that Moses and Aaron were present at that location, distinct from the verb governing the 250 men.

Differences between versions

The Vulgate renders this closing phrase as "stantibus Moyses et Aaron" ("with Moses and Aaron standing"), an ablative absolute construction that grammatically separates Moses and Aaron from the main verb governing the rebels, presenting their standing as a distinct circumstantial detail rather than as part of the same coordinated subject. The LXX places Μωυσῆς καὶ Ἀαρών after ἔστησαν ("they stood"), which can be read as naming them among those who stood at the tent entrance, closer to a coordinated-subject reading than the Vulgate's subordinate construction.