Exodus 1:18

Summary

The king of Egypt summons the midwives and confronts them with a question about their conduct: why they have done "this thing" and why they have kept the male children alive. The verse is built as a narrative sequence of three actions — summoning, speaking, and the content of the accusation.

Key words

• va-yiqra ("and he summoned", H7121G) — qal narrative form marking the next event in sequence; the king is the grammatical subject.
• la-meyalledot ("to the midwives", H3205) — piel participle, feminine plural, meaning literally "the ones who cause to bear"; the intensive stem highlights their professional role as active agents in delivery.
• madua ("why?", H4069) — interrogative particle introducing a rhetorical/accusatory question rather than a simple request for information.
• asiten ("you have done", H6213A) — qal perfect, second person feminine plural, marking completed action already performed by the midwives.
• techayeyna ("you have let live / caused to live", H2421) — piel narrative form, feminine plural; the intensive stem denotes causing life to continue, i.e., an active preservation, not mere passive survival.

What the text says

The verse opens with two narrative-vav verbs, va-yiqra ("he summoned", H7121G) and va-yomer ("he said", H0559), both qal forms in the third person masculine singular, which continue the story sequence begun earlier in the chapter. The subject is melekh-mitzrayim ("king of Egypt", H4428G + H4714G), a construct phrase functioning as one unit, "king of Egypt." The recipients of the action are marked by la-meyalledot ("to the midwives", H3205), a feminine plural piel participle referring to their function as those who assist in birth.

The king's speech is framed as a double rhetorical question introduced once by madua ("why?", H4069), governing two verbal clauses: asiten ha-davar ha-zeh ("you have done this thing", H6213A + H1697I + H2088) and va-techayeyna et-ha-yeladim ("and you have let the [male] children live", H2421 + H0853 + H3206). The first verb, asiten, is a qal perfect denoting a completed act ("what you have done"), while the second, techayeyna, is a piel narrative form built on the causative-intensive stem of chayah ("to live"), meaning "to cause to live" or "to keep alive." This grammatical distinction — a plain qal for "doing" versus an intensive piel for "causing to live" — marks the second clause as the specific and more serious component of the accusation: not just an action, but the active preservation of life.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders techayeyna as ἐζωογονεῖτε ("you were keeping alive," from ζωογονέω), a durative imperfect suggesting ongoing action, where the Hebrew piel narrative form (va-techayeyna, H2421) presents it as a completed narrative event. The Vulgate paraphrases the entire clause as "ut pueros servaretis" ("that you might save the boys"), turning the direct question of the Hebrew into a purpose clause and omitting the separate rhetorical madua ("why?", H4069) that structures the Hebrew text as two linked questions.