Numbers 16:42

Summary

The verse describes a moment during the congregation's uprising against Moses and Aaron: when the group gathered against them, they turned toward the Tent of Meeting and saw the cloud suddenly covering it, with the glory of Yehovah appearing.

Key words

• hikahel ("assembled", H6950) — niphal infinitive construct with be- ("when"), marking a passive/reflexive gathering: the congregation is presented as gathering itself, not merely being gathered by someone.
• 'edah ("congregation", H5712) — feminine singular noun with definite article, the subject of the gathering action.
• yifnu ("they turned", H6437G) — qal narrative form, 3rd person masculine plural; the subject is not restated in this clause but continues from the preceding narrative context.
• kissahu ("it covered", H3680) — piel perfect with 3rd masculine singular pronominal suffix ("it/him"), meaning the cloud "covered it" — the direct object is attached as a suffix rather than a separate word.
• kevod ("glory of", H3519) — masculine singular noun in construct state, linking directly to Yehovah to form "the glory of Yehovah."

What the text says

The verse opens with the narrative formula va-yehi ("and it was") followed by a temporal clause built on the niphal infinitive hikahel: "when the congregation assembled against Moses and against Aaron." The niphal form gives the gathering a reflexive/passive nuance — the congregation itself comes together, rather than being described as actively convened by an external agent. The preposition 'al ("against/on") is repeated before both Mosheh and Aharon, marking both names as targets of the same hostile action.

The next clause, va-yifnu, uses a plain narrative verb without repeating the subject; the 3rd masculine plural form assumes continuity with whoever was last acting in the story, here understood as Moses and Aaron turning toward 'ohel mo'ed ("tent of meeting"), a construct phrase literally "tent of appointed-time/meeting."

The interjection hinneh ("there!", H2009) introduces a sudden visual observation, followed by kissahu, where the object "it" is grammatically fused into the verb as a suffix rather than expressed as a separate word — the Hebrew does not specify explicitly what "it" refers to beyond context (the tent). The final clause uses the niphal yera ("it appeared", H7200G), placing the "glory of Yehovah" (kevod Yehovah) as a passive-appearing subject rather than an actively self-revealing one.

Differences between versions

The Vulgate text supplied ("Cumque oriretur seditio, et tumultus incresceret" — "And when the sedition arose and the tumult increased") does not correspond to the Hebrew or Greek content of this verse; it reflects a different verse-numbering alignment in that tradition rather than a translation of the same clause. The LXX renders yifnu ("they turned") as ὥρμησαν ("they rushed/hastened"), a more forceful verb of motion than the Hebrew's neutral "turned."