Numbers 16:31

Summary

The verse marks a narrative turning point: immediately after the speaker (Moses, per context) finishes uttering a specific set of words, the ground beneath the rebels splits open. The Hebrew structure emphasizes both the temporal immediacy and the completeness of the preceding speech.

Key words

• va-y'hi ("and it was", H1961) — narrative vav plus the verb "to be" in the simple (qal) form, marking the classic Hebrew formula for introducing a new narrative event: "and it happened that..."
• ke-khaloto ("when he finished", H3615G) — piel infinitive with the preposition ke ("when") and a pronominal suffix ("his"), giving intensive force to "finish" and expressing exact simultaneity: "in his finishing."
• le-dabber ("to speak", H1696G) — piel infinitive construct, intensive stem of "speak," paired with khaloto to form the idiom "when he finished speaking."
• ha-devarim ha-'elleh ("these words", H1697G + H0428) — plural noun with definite article followed by the demonstrative "these," pointing back to a specific, bounded set of words already spoken.
• tibbaqa' ("it was split open", H1234) — niphal (passive) narrative verb, feminine, agreeing with ha-adamah ("the ground"); the passive form presents the splitting as something that happens to the ground rather than an action the ground performs.

What the text says

The verse opens with the narrative formula va-y'hi ("and it was"), which in Biblical Hebrew signals a shift in the story's action. This is immediately followed by a temporal clause built on two piel infinitives in sequence: ke-khaloto le-dabber — literally "when his-finishing to-speak," meaning "when he finished speaking." Both infinitives (khalot, "to finish," and dabber, "to speak") are in the intensive piel stem, which in these verbs conveys the completed, deliberate act of finishing a speech rather than a casual trailing-off.

The object of the speech is marked by the untranslated direct-object particle 'et (H0853) followed by kol ha-devarim ha-'elleh — "all these words" — a construct phrase specifying that the entire preceding block of speech, no more and no less, is in view. The demonstrative 'elleh ("these") ties the statement to what came immediately before in the narrative.

The second half of the verse begins with another narrative va-, introducing tibbaqa' ("it was split open"), a niphal (passive) verb form. The passive voice places grammatical focus on the ground (ha-adamah, feminine singular) as the entity acted upon, rather than naming an agent. The relative clause asher tachteihem ("which was under them") uses a construct noun form (tachtei, "underneath of") plus a third-person plural suffix to locate the ground precisely beneath the group referenced earlier in the chapter.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the Hebrew double-infinitive construction (khaloto le-dabber, "his finishing to speak") with a participial phrase, ἐπαύσατο λαλῶν ("he ceased speaking"), collapsing the two Hebrew infinitives into one finite verb plus participle. The Vulgate's cessavit loqui ("he ceased to speak") similarly merges the construction but adds confestim ("immediately"), an adverb not present as a separate lexical item in the Hebrew text, though it reflects the temporal immediacy implied by ke- ("when/as"). The Vulgate also specifies sub pedibus eorum ("under their feet"), whereas the Hebrew tachteihem only says "under them," without mentioning feet.