Numbers 16:25

Summary

The verse narrates that Moses stood up and went to Dathan and Abiram, and the elders of Israel followed after him. It is a simple narrative sequence marking physical movement and accompaniment within the story.

Key words

• va-yaqom ("and he arose", H6965B) — qal narrative form of the verb, showing consecutive action ("and then he arose"), placing Moses' rising as the first event in the sequence.
• va-yelekh ("and he went", H1980G) — qal narrative form, third in a chain of three consecutive verbs (arose / went / they went), each introduced by the narrative vav (H9001).
• achara(v) ("after him", H0310A + H9033) — the word for "after" appears in construct form with the pronominal suffix -o ("him"), referring back to Moses; grammatically it links the elders' movement directly to Moses' prior action.
• ziqnei ("elders of", H2205G) — masculine plural construct form, meaning it must be followed by a genitive; here it connects to Yisra'El ("Israel", H3478), producing "elders of Israel" as a bound phrase rather than two separate nouns.
• va-yelkhu ("and they went", H1980N) — plural qal narrative form, marking the elders as the collective subject of the third verb in the chain, distinct from the singular verbs used for Moses.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built as a tight chain of three narrative (vav-consecutive) verbs: va-yaqom ("and he arose"), va-yelekh ("and he went"), and va-yelkhu ("and they went"). This chain structure is a standard narrative device in Biblical Hebrew prose, where each vav-prefixed verb marks the next sequential event: first Moses rises, then he moves toward Dathan and Abiram, then the elders move after him. The switch from singular verb forms (for Moses) to a plural verb form (for the elders) marks the shift in subject without needing an explicit pronoun beyond the suffix on achara(v) ("after him").

The phrase ziqnei Yisra'El ("elders of Israel") is a construct chain, meaning "elders" cannot stand alone but is bound grammatically to "Israel," producing a single conceptual unit "the elders of Israel" rather than two independent nouns joined loosely. The preposition 'el ("to", H0413) before "Dathan" governs both proper names Dathan and Abiram, joined by the conjunction va (H9002), indicating a single destination with two named individuals.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the destination clause as ἐπὶ Δαθὰν καὶ Ἀβειρών ("to Dathan and Abeiron") using a preposition matching Hebrew 'el, while the Vulgate uses ad Dathan et Abiron similarly. All versions preserve the three-part narrative structure (rising, going, following) without notable divergence in meaning; differences are limited to standard transliteration of the proper names (Ἀβειρών / Abiron / Abiram) and minor stylistic phrasing in the modern translations (e.g., "followed him" vs. "went after him").