Numbers 16:2

Summary

The verse describes a group of men — 250 in total — who rose up "before" Moses. The Hebrew text identifies these men through three descriptive phrases: they are leaders of the congregation, men "called" to the appointed meeting, and men of renown.

Key words

• vayyakumu ("they rose up", H6965B) — qal verb with narrative vav, marking the next event in the story sequence.
• lifnei ("before", H6440G) — construct form of "face," here functioning as a preposition indicating position relative to Moses.
• nesi'ei ("leaders of", H5387A) — masculine plural construct, opening a chain that specifies whose leaders these men are ("leaders of the congregation").
• keri'ei ("called of", H7148) — masculine plural construct adjective, describing men summoned to the mo'ed ("appointed meeting", H4150I).
• anshei ("men of", H0582) — construct form linked to shem ("name", H8034), forming the idiom "men of name," i.e., men with a reputation.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence opens with vayyakumu lifnei Mosheh — "and they rose up before Moses." The preposition lifnei is built from the noun "face" (panim) in construct form; literally it places the men in front of or in the presence of Moses, without an inherent sense of hostility encoded in the word itself. The verb vayyakumu is a narrative (vav-consecutive) form, simply advancing the story: this action follows from what precedes it.

The subject is then expanded: "and men from the sons of Israel, fifty and two hundred" — note the Hebrew number order, chamishim ("fifty", H2572) before matayim ("two hundred", H3967), reversed from the English convention of "two hundred fifty." These 250 men receive three back-to-back construct-chain descriptions, each beginning with a plural construct noun or adjective: nesi'ei edah ("leaders of the congregation"), keri'ei mo'ed ("called ones of the appointed meeting" — men summoned to it), and anshei shem ("men of name/reputation"). Each phrase attaches a status or function to the same group of men, stacked in apposition without any connecting conjunction between them in the Hebrew.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew lifnei ("before," a positional term) is rendered by the LXX with ἔναντι ("in front of," also relatively neutral), while the Vulgate uses contra ("against"), introducing a more confrontational sense not explicit in the Hebrew preposition itself. Several modern translations (BSB "rebellion against," RV1909 "contra Moisés") follow the Vulgate's confrontational framing rather than the more neutral spatial sense of the Hebrew lifnei. Additionally, keri'ei mo'ed ("called ones of the meeting") is rendered variously as "representatives in the assembly" (BSB) or "miembros del consejo" (SBLIBRE), interpretive glosses for a Hebrew phrase that literally denotes men "called" to the mo'ed.