Numbers 16:40

Summary

The verse states that the bronze censers (mentioned in the prior verse) serve as a zikkaron ("reminder", H2146) for the Israelites: no unauthorized man is to approach to burn incense before Yehovah unless he is from the offspring of Aaron. It closes by linking this rule to Korah's fate and to Yehovah's prior instruction spoken through Moses.

Key words

• zikkaron ("a reminder", H2146) — a masculine singular noun standing at the head of the sentence, naming the function of the object described in the preceding verse before any verb appears.
• zar ("strange", H2114A) — adjective modifying 'ish ("a man", H0376G); together they denote someone outside the qualified group, restated and clarified by the following relative clause.
• yikrav ("he may draw near", H7126G) — qal imperfect, expressing an action not yet realized or forbidden from occurring; the imperfect here carries a prohibitive/modal sense within the lo... asher lo construction.
• lehaqtir ("to make smoke", H6999A) — hiphil infinitive construct, expressing the purpose or intended action ("in order to burn incense") of the ish zar were he to draw near.
• dibber ("he had spoken", H1696G) — piel perfect, marking a completed prior act of speech by Yehovah, anchoring the rule to an earlier divine statement "by the hand of" (be-yad, H3027J) Moses.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence opens without a verb: zikkaron ("a reminder") stands first, followed by li-vnei Yisra'el ("to the sons of Israel", H1121G/H3478), establishing the topic before explaining its content. The purpose clause introduced by lema'an asher ("so that... that", H4616/H0834A) governs the negative imperfect lo yikrav — the drawing-near that must not happen. The subject ish zar is immediately qualified by a second relative clause, asher lo mi-zera' Aharon hu ("who is not of the seed of Aaron, he"), where the independent pronoun hu (H1931) adds emphasis to the negated identity. The infinitive lehaqtir expresses the forbidden purpose: burning incense lifnei Yehovah ("before Yehovah", H6440G/H3068G). The final clause shifts to completed action with dibber (piel perfect), stating that this instruction was already spoken be-yad Mosheh ("by the hand of Moses"), a fixed idiom for transmission of divine speech through an intermediary.

Differences between versions

The LXX begins with κατακεκαυμένοι ("having been burned"), a participle referring back to the censers of the previous verse, rather than opening with a noun equivalent to zikkaron as a fresh clause; the Hebrew's nominal opening is smoothed into continuous narration. Where the Hebrew has ish zar ("a strange man"), the LXX reads ἀλλογενής ("of another race/foreigner") and the Vulgate alienigena ("foreign-born"), both narrowing "strange" toward ethnic/lineage foreignness rather than the broader sense of "unauthorized." The Vulgate restructures the purpose clause as ut haberent... quibus commonerentur ("that they might have [something] by which they would be warned"), making the reminder function explicit as a warning device, a nuance not directly present in the Hebrew's simple zikkaron.