Numbers 26:10

Summary

The verse describes the earth opening and swallowing the followers of Korah, specifying that this happened simultaneously with the death of the congregation, when fire consumed two hundred and fifty men. The verse closes by stating that these men became a sign or warning.

Key words

• tif.Tach ("it opened", H6605A) — third-person feminine qal verb in narrative form (with vav-conversive), showing "the earth" as the grammatical subject acting sequentially: "and then it opened."
• 'A.retz ("earth", H0776H) — feminine singular noun, subject of both verbs of opening and swallowing.
• tiv.La' ("it swallowed", H1104) — qal narrative verb, feminine, continuing the sequence of actions performed by "the earth."
• 'e.Dah ("company", H5712) — feminine singular noun preceded by the preposition be- ("when"), forming an infinitive-construct temporal clause: "in the dying of the congregation."
• Nes ("a warning sign", H5251H) — masculine singular noun following the preposition le- ("into/as"), marking the resulting state: "they became into a sign."

What the text says

The sentence structure centers on two consecutive qal narrative verbs — tif.Tach ("it opened") and tiv.La' ("it swallowed") — both grammatically feminine, agreeing with the subject 'A.retz ("earth"). This gives the earth an active, personified role: it opens its mouth (Pi, H6310G, in construct form "mouth of") and swallows both "them" and Ko.rach ("Korah", H7141I), marked by the object particle 'et.

Two temporal clauses follow, each introduced by a form of the preposition "when" attached to an infinitive: be-mot ha-'edah ("when/in the dying of the congregation") and ba-'akhol ha-'esh ("when/in the consuming of the fire"). These infinitive-construct clauses in Hebrew do not mark tense directly but indicate simultaneity — the swallowing by the earth is presented as occurring in conjunction with the congregation's death and the fire's consumption of "fifty and two hundred men" (chamishim u-matayim 'ish), a number phrased with the smaller unit first, a common Hebrew numerical order.

The final clause, va-yihyu le-nes ("and they became for a sign"), uses the narrative verb yihyu ("they became", H1961) followed by the preposition le- plus Nes ("a warning sign", H5251H). This construction marks a resulting status of the men consumed, expressed as becoming an entity for a purpose (a sign), rather than a simple state.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the phrase differently, stating that Korah perished "ἐν τῇ συναγωγῇ αὐτοῦ" ("with his congregation"), directly attaching Korah to "his congregation" rather than preserving the Hebrew's separate temporal clause "when the congregation died." The Vulgate similarly restructures the verse, adding the participial phrase "morientibus plurimis" ("with many dying"), which is not a direct rendering of the Hebrew's infinitive-construct temporal clauses but a paraphrase describing simultaneous death.