בלילה ישנו באוהל גדול, כי לא רצינו לחזור הביתה מאוחר.

Starting with בלילה puts the time setting first: At night...

This is very natural in Hebrew. Hebrew often begins a sentence with a time expression, place expression, or other background information before giving the main action.

So:

בלילה ישנו באוהל גדול
literally feels like: At night, we slept in a big tent

You could also say ישנו בלילה..., but that would sound a little different in emphasis.

בלילה means at night or during the night.

It is built from the preposition ב־ meaning in / at plus לילה meaning night.

In unpointed Hebrew spelling, בלילה can represent slightly different vowel patterns, but in normal reading here it is simply understood as the common time expression at night.

So a learner can safely read it as:

• בלילה = at night

Yes — ישנו can mean either we slept or they slept in unpointed Hebrew.

Hebrew past-tense forms sometimes overlap. The reason we understand it as we slept here is the context:

• later in the sentence we get לא רצינו = we did not want
• so the subject is clearly we

That makes ישנו here mean we slept, not they slept.

Because Hebrew verbs already show the subject.

ישנו already tells you the subject is plural, and in this sentence the later verb רצינו confirms it is we.

Hebrew often leaves out subject pronouns when they are not needed. This is normal and very common.

So Hebrew prefers:

• ישנו = we slept

rather than:

• אנחנו ישנו = we slept

Adding אנחנו is possible, but it usually gives extra emphasis or contrast.

ישנו is the past tense of לישון = to sleep.

Here it is the plural past form understood as we slept.

A few related forms are:

• ישנתי = I slept
• ישנת = you slept
• ישן / ישנה = he slept / she slept
• ישנו = we slept / they slept
• ישנתם / ישנתן = you all slept

So in this sentence:

• ישנו = slept

In Hebrew, adjectives usually come after the noun, not before it.

So:

• אוהל גדול = a big tent
• literally: tent big

Also, the adjective must match the noun in:

• gender
• number
• definiteness

Here:

• אוהל is masculine singular
• so the adjective is גדול, also masculine singular

If the phrase were definite, it would be:

• באוהל הגדול = in the big tent

Notice that both the noun and adjective become definite.

באוהל is the preposition ב־ attached directly to אוהל.

So:

• ב־ = in / at
• אוהל = tent
• באוהל = in a tent

Because Hebrew prepositions are often attached as prefixes, this is completely normal.

Also, notice that אוהל is indefinite here, because the phrase means in a big tent, not in the big tent.

So:

• באוהל גדול = in a big tent
• באוהל הגדול = in the big tent

רצינו is the past tense of לרצות = to want.

It means:

• we wanted

With לא before it:

• לא רצינו = we did not want

This is a very common Hebrew pattern:

• לא
  • past verb = negative past

So:

• רצינו = we wanted
• לא רצינו = we did not want

After a verb like רצינו (we wanted), Hebrew normally uses the infinitive for the next verb.

So:

• רצינו לחזור = we wanted to return / go back

Here:

• לחזור is the infinitive of לחזור
• the ל־ at the beginning is the usual infinitive marker, often equivalent to English to

This is the same pattern you see in sentences like:

• רציתי לאכול = I wanted to eat
• רצינו ללכת = we wanted to go
• רצו לראות = they wanted to see

הביתה is a very common special form meaning home or homeward, especially with motion.

It contains the old directional ending ־ה, which gives the sense of toward a place.

So:

• הביתה = home / to home / homeward

That is why Hebrew says:

• לחזור הביתה = to return home

rather than לחזור לבית.

Compare:

• הביתה = home, to home
• לבית = to a house / to the house / to a home, depending on context

So הביתה is the natural idiomatic choice here.

Yes, מאוחר is formally an adjective, but Hebrew often uses adjectives where English would use adverbs.

So:

• לחזור הביתה מאוחר = to return home late

Here מאוחר functions like an adverb, describing how/when the returning happened.

This is very common in Hebrew. For example:

• לקום מוקדם = to get up early
• לבוא מאוחר = to come late
• לדבר ברור is less standard, but similar adjective-like adverb use exists in some contexts

Why masculine singular? Because when Hebrew uses an adjective adverbially like this, the masculine singular form is often the default form.

So מאוחר here does not need to agree with we. It describes the action, not the people.