Deuteronomy 34:11

Summary

The verse enumerates the recipients and scope of the signs and wonders that Yehovah sent Moses to perform in Egypt: it lists "all the signs" and "the wonders," specifies that Yehovah sent him to do them, and names Pharaoh, his servants, and his whole land as those affected.

Key words

• 'otot ("signs", H0226G) — feminine plural noun with the definite article ha (H9009), governed by khol ("all", H3605) in construct form, producing "all the signs."
• mofetim ("wonders", H4159) — masculine plural noun, also definite, joined to the previous noun by the conjunction ve ("and", H9002), forming a paired expression "the signs and the wonders."
• shelaCho ("he sent him", H7971G + H9033) — qal perfect verb with a third-person masculine singular pronominal suffix ("him"), indicating a completed action where Yehovah sent a specific person (referred to by the "him" suffix, understood contextually as Moses).
• la'asot ("to do", H6213A) — qal infinitive with the preposition le (H9005), expressing purpose: "in order to do."
• 'avaday ("his servants", H5650) — masculine plural noun in construct form with a possessive suffix "his," linked to khol ("all") to yield "all his servants."

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence structure builds a chain of prepositional phrases beginning with le-khol-ha'otot ("to/regarding all the signs") and veha-mofetim ("and the wonders"). This phrase is qualified by the relative clause 'asher shelaCho Yehovah la'asot ("which Yehovah sent him to do"), where the verb shelaCho carries a suffixed pronoun "him" as its direct object — the text does not name this "him" explicitly in this verse, relying on the surrounding narrative context (established earlier in the chapter) to identify the referent as Moses.

The phrase la'asot be'eretz Mitzrayim ("to do in the land of Egypt") specifies the location, and the following series — le-Far'oh ("to Pharaoh"), u-le-khol-'avadav ("and to all his servants"), u-le-khol-'artzo ("and to all his land") — uses repeated khol ("all") constructs to stress totality: not just Pharaoh, but all his servants and all his land were affected. The repetition of the preposition le ("to") across these three targets (Pharaoh, servants, land) creates a parallel structure emphasizing the comprehensive reach of the signs and wonders across Egyptian society and territory.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew text uses the verb shelaCho ("he sent him") with a pronominal suffix but does not explicitly name the object as "Moses" within this verse. The BSB translation inserts "Moses" explicitly ("the LORD sent Moses to do"), making the implicit referent explicit, while the Hebrew, LXX, and Vulgate all rely on the third-person pronoun/suffix without naming him directly in this verse. The LXX renders 'avadav ("his servants") with the Greek term for "servants/attendants" (θεράπουσιν), and the BSB translates the same Hebrew word as "officials," showing a difference in nuance among translations for the same underlying term H5650.