Numbers 16:32
וַתִּפְתַּח הָאָרֶץ אֶת־פִּיהָ וַתִּבְלַע אֹתָם וְאֶת־בָּתֵּיהֶם וְאֵת כָּל־הָאָדָם אֲשֶׁר לְקֹרַח וְאֵת כָּל־הָרֲכֽוּשׁ׃
✦ Hebrew interlinear
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✦ The same verse in five languages
וַתִּפְתַּ֤ח הָאָ֙רֶץ֙ אֶת־פִּ֔יהָ וַתִּבְלַ֥ע אֹתָ֖ם וְאֶת־בָּתֵּיהֶ֑ם וְאֵ֤ת כָּל־הָאָדָם֙ אֲשֶׁ֣ר לְקֹ֔רַח וְאֵ֖ת כָּל־הָרֲכֽוּשׁ׃
καὶ ἠνοίχθη ἡ γῆ καὶ κατέπιεν αὐτοὺς καὶ τοὺς οἴκους αὐτῶν καὶ πάντας τοὺς ἀνθρώπους τοὺς ὄντας μετὰ κόρε καὶ τὰ κτήνη αὐτῶν.
Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0
Latin (Vulgate)
et aperiens os suum, devoravit illos cum tabernaculis suis et universa substantia eorum,
La tierra abrió su boca y se los tragó junto con sus familias, a todos los seguidores de Coré y todas sus posesiones.
Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)
Y abrió la tierra su boca, y tragólos á ellos, y á sus casas, y á todos los hombres de Coré, y á toda su hacienda.
and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them and their households — all Korah ’s men and all their possessions.
✦ What the text says
Summary
The earth opens and swallows Korah's group along with their households, followers, and possessions. The verse uses sequential narrative verbs to depict two consecutive actions: the ground opening, then swallowing.
Key words
- tif.Tach ("it opened", H6605A) — qal narrative verb, third person feminine (referring to 'A.retz, "earth"), marking the first event in the sequence.
- 'A.retz ("earth", H0776H) — feminine singular noun with definite article, the subject performing the action.
- tiv.La' ("it swallowed", H1104) — qal narrative verb, continuing the vav-consecutive chain begun by tif.Tach; the same subject (the earth) performs a second action.
- 'a.Dam ("person", H0120G) — singular noun in construct with kol ("every", H3605), forming "every person," followed by a relative clause identifying whose men they were.
- Ko.rach ("Korah", H7141I) — proper name governed by the preposition le ("to/belonging to", H9005), expressing possession: "who belonged to Korah."
What the text says
The verse is built on two narrative (vav-consecutive) verbs — tif.Tach ("it opened") and tiv.La' ("it swallowed") — both grammatically feminine, agreeing with 'A.retz ("the earth"). This chaining is typical of Hebrew narrative sequence: first the ground opens its "mouth" (Pi, H6310G, in construct with the pronominal suffix "its"), then it swallows. The object of swallowing is presented in a list, each item introduced by the untranslated direct object marker 'et (H0853): "them," "their households" (bateihem, H1004M with plural suffix), "all the person who belonged to Korah," and "all the property" (ra.Khush, H7399).
The phrase "all the person who [was] to Korah" uses the singular collective noun 'a.Dam with the relative particle 'a.Sher (H0834A) and the preposition le, expressing possession or affiliation — literally "all the human that [belonged] to Korah," rendered in translations as "Korah's men" or "the men who were with Korah." The construct chains (kol... + noun) repeated three times structure the sentence as an escalating enumeration: individuals, households, followers, possessions.
Differences between versions
The LXX renders the opening verb passively — ἠνοίχθη ("was opened") — where the Hebrew tif.Tach is active, with the earth itself as agent. For ra.Khush ("property", H7399), the LXX gives τὰ κτήνη ("the cattle/livestock"), a narrower category than the general Hebrew term for "possessions." The Vulgate's cum tabernaculis suis ("with their tents") differs from the Hebrew bateihem ("their houses/households", H1004M), using a term specifically for tents rather than houses.
This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.