TO BE GATHERED TO ONE'S PEOPLE — the Torah's own idiom for dying, from asaf, to gather in, the verb used of bringing a harvest under cover. ⚠ It is stated SEPARATELY from burial every time, which is why it cannot simply mean interment: Abraham is gathered to his people and then buried (Genesis 25:8-9), and so are Ishmael, Isaac and Jacob. At Numbers 20:24, 26 Aaron is gathered to his people on a mountaintop and the text never mentions a grave at all — the reverse of Miriam in v1, where the burial is the only thing recorded. Whether the phrase implies anything beyond death is exactly the sort of question this project leaves where the Hebrew leaves it. → first discussed at Num 20:24