Numbers 16:50

Summary

The verse narrates Aaron's return to Moses at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting, closing the episode with the note that the plague afflicting the people had ceased. The clause structure links Aaron's movement to the cessation of the plague as its circumstance or outcome.

Key words

• va-Yashov ("and he returned", H7725G) — qal narrative verb with vav-consecutive, marking sequential action in the story ("and then he returned").
• Petach ("entrance of", H6607) — construct-state noun, grammatically bound to the following noun to form "entrance of the tent."
• Ohel Mo'ed ("tent of meeting", H0168G/H4150I) — construct chain naming the specific structure; Ohel is construct, Mo'ed the noun it governs.
• ha-Mmagefah ("the plague", H4046) — definite feminine singular noun, referring back to a previously mentioned affliction (the definite article assumes the reader/hearer already knows which plague).
• ne'etzarah ("it had been restrained/halted", H6113) — niphal perfect verb, passive in voice (something acted upon the plague) and completed in aspect, describing a finished state prior to or concurrent with Aaron's return.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence opens with the narrative vav attached to yashov ("he returned"), a standard construction for advancing the story sequence: "and Aaron returned." The destination is given in two prepositional phrases both introduced by 'el ("to") — first "to Moses," then "to the entrance of the Tent of Meeting" — stacking the personal and spatial targets of the movement without a connecting particle between them.

The second half of the verse is a separate clause joined by ve ("and"): "and the plague had been restrained." The verb ne'etzarah is niphal, meaning the plague is the grammatical subject undergoing an action rather than performing one — the text does not name an agent within this clause. Its perfect aspect signals a completed state, which combined with the simple "and" allows the clause to function as background information (the plague's cessation) rather than a strictly sequential event following Aaron's return.

Differences between versions

The Vulgate renders the final clause with postquam quievit interitus ("after the destruction had ceased"), using "after" to make explicit a temporal relationship that the Hebrew's plain "and" leaves more ambiguous. The Septuagint text as given ends abruptly with καὶ ἡ θραῦσις ("and the plague/blow"), lacking a finite verb corresponding to ne'etzarah; the Greek clause as preserved here does not complete the thought that the Hebrew and Vulgate convey. The Spanish (RV1909, SBLIBRE) and English (BSB) translations follow the Vulgate's interpretive move, using "cuando" ("when"), "pues" ("since/for"), and "since" respectively to frame the plague's halt as a cause or temporal marker — a nuance supplied by translators rather than made explicit by the Hebrew conjunction ve alone.