Numbers 16:5

Summary

The verse reports that Moses spoke to Korah and to his entire assembly, announcing that in the morning Yehovah would make known who belongs to him and who is "the holy one," bringing that person near to himself, and that whoever he chooses he will bring near to himself.

Key words

yedaBer ("he spoke", H1696G) — piel narrative form; the intensive stem marks this as a formal, deliberate act of speech rather than casual talk.

adaTo ("his company", H5712) — feminine singular construct with pronominal suffix, defining Korah's group as an organized assembly ("company of him").

yoDa' ("he will make known", H3045) — hiphil jussive; the causative stem frames Yehovah as the one who produces knowledge/revelation, and the jussive nuance gives the statement the force of an announced decree ("let him make known").

hikRiv ("he will bring near", H7126G) — hiphil, sequential perfect continuing the narrative chain; causative, indicating that someone is caused to approach, not that they approach on their own.

yivchar ("he will choose", H0977) — qal imperfect, a simple (non-causative) future/ongoing action, describing the act of selection as distinct from the subsequent act of "bringing near."

What the text says

The sentence opens with the narrative chain va-yedaber... leMor ("and he spoke... saying"), introducing direct speech to both Korah and "all adaTo" ("his company", H5712), his organized group. Within the speech, Boker ("morning", H1242) stands alone as a time expression before the verb, without a word explicitly meaning "tomorrow"; translations that add "tomorrow" are supplying this from context rather than from a separate Hebrew term.

The verb yoDa' ("he will make known", H3045, hiphil jussive) governs two objects joined by ve-, each marked with the object particle 'et (H0853): "the one who [belongs] to him" ('asher lo) and "the holy one" (ha-qaDosh, H6918G). The text does not state grammatically whether these two phrases refer to the same referent or to two categories; the syntax simply places them side by side as parallel objects of the same verb. The clause then continues with hikRiv ("he will bring near", H7126G, hiphil sequential perfect), followed by a second, symmetrical statement: "and whom he will choose" ('asher yivchar, qal imperfect, H0977) "he will bring near" (yakRiv, H7126H, hiphil imperfect), each ending in 'eLav ("to himself"). This repetition of "bring near...to himself" in both halves creates a structural mirroring between the initial revealing/choosing and the resulting action of drawing near.

Differences between versions

The LXX inserts an additional verb, Ἐπέσκεπται ("he has visited/inspected"), which has no corresponding word in the Hebrew clause. Where the Hebrew has Yehovah (H3068G), the LXX text here reads ὁ θεὸς ("the god") rather than a form corresponding to "Lord." The Vulgate adds inquit ("he says"), a clarifying verb not present in the Hebrew infinitive leMor ("saying", H0559). For the parallel hiphil verbs, the Vulgate renders the first as applicabit ("he will attach") and the second as appropinquabunt ("they will approach"), shifting the second clause from a causative sense (Hebrew yakRiv, "he will bring near") to an intransitive one (the chosen ones approaching on their own).