Numbers 16:3

Summary

The verse describes a group assembling against Moses and Aaron and confronting them with a rhetorical challenge: since the whole congregation is holy and Yehovah is in their midst, why do Moses and Aaron elevate themselves above the assembly of Yehovah.

Key words

• yikkahalu ("they assembled", H6950) — niphal form, marking the verb as passive/reflexive: the group "gathers itself" or "is gathered," rather than an active subject gathering others.
• rav ("enough", H7227A) — masculine singular adjective functioning here as an exclamatory predicate ("[it is] enough for you"), with no verb "to be" expressed in Hebrew.
• qedoshim ("holy", H6918G) — masculine plural adjective agreeing with kullam ("all of them", H3605 + suffix), asserting a collective status of the congregation.
• titnasse'u ("you exalt yourselves", H5375L) — hithpael imperfect, reflexive stem denoting self-elevation as an ongoing or future action, addressed to "you all" (masculine plural, i.e., Moses and Aaron).
• qehal ("assembly of", H6951) — construct noun linking to YHWH, forming the phrase "assembly of Yehovah," distinct from ha'edah ("the congregation", H5712) used earlier in the verse.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence opens with two consecutive narrative verbs joined by the va- narrative prefix: yikkahalu ("they assembled") and yomeru ("they said"), establishing sequential action — first gathering, then speaking. The niphal stem of yikkahalu frames the assembling as something that happens to the group collectively, without specifying an initiating agent beyond the group itself.

The speech introduced by yomeru is built on parallel clauses connected by ki ("that/because", H3588A) and u- ("and"). The first clause, rav-lakhem, uses the adjective rav without a copula, a common Hebrew construction where "is" is implied — literally "enough for you," conveying reproach through economy of words rather than an explicit verb. The following clause piles up emphasis through repetition: kol-ha'edah ("all the congregation") is reinforced by kullam ("all of them"), both preceding the predicate qedoshim ("holy"), stressing totality of the claim rather than a partial holiness.

The final question uses maddu'a ("why?", H4069) with the hithpael verb titnasse'u, a reflexive form built on the root meaning "to lift" — the speakers accuse Moses and Aaron of "lifting themselves up," a self-directed action, over the qehal YHWH ("assembly of Yehovah"), a phrase distinct from the earlier ha'edah ("the congregation") though referring to the same collective body.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders rav-lakhem ("enough for you") as Ἐχέτω ὑμῖν ("let it be sufficient for you"), preserving the sense of reproach through a different verbal construction. Where the Hebrew has beteikhem YHWH ("Yehovah is in their midst"), the LXX matches this with ἐν αὐτοῖς Κύριος, but the SBLIBRE Spanish translation shifts the pronoun to "en medio de nosotros" ("in the midst of us"), differing from the third-person plural suffix -hem ("them") found in the Hebrew tokham.