Exodus 1:7

Summary

Exodus 1:7 describes the demographic growth of the Israelites in Egypt through a chain of five verbs of increasing intensity, culminating in the land being "filled" with them. The sentence uses accumulating verbal forms rather than a single description to convey rapid, overwhelming growth.

Key words

• paru ("they were fruitful", H6509) — qal perfect, marking completed action; sets up the sequence of what follows.
• yish'retzu ("they swarmed", H8317) — qal narrative form (vav-consecutive); this root is used elsewhere for the teeming/swarming of small creatures.
• me'od me'od ("muchness muchness", H3966 doubled) — the same word repeated as an intensifier, literally "very very," strengthening the preceding verb ya'atzmu ("they became mighty").
• timmale' ("it was filled", H4390) — niphal (passive) narrative form; the land is grammatically the subject acted upon, not the Israelites acting on it.
• ha'aretz ("the land", H0776G) — feminine singular noun with definite article, the grammatical subject of the final clause.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built as a chain of five verbs connected by the narrative vav (H9001), a device that presents a rapid sequence of events: paru ("they were fruitful"), yish'retzu ("they swarmed"), yirbu ("they multiplied"), ya'atzmu ("they became mighty"), and finally timmale' ("it was filled"). The first verb, paru, is a plain qal perfect, while the remaining four are narrative (vav-consecutive) forms, giving the sense of one development following directly upon another. The verb yish'retzu (H8317) is notable because its root is elsewhere associated with the swarming of small creatures (as in the teeming of aquatic or crawling animals), giving the description of Israel's growth an image of dense, rapid proliferation rather than simple numerical increase. The doubled intensifier bi-me'od me'od ("with muchness muchness") repeats the same word for emphasis, a construction Hebrew uses to mark an extreme degree. The final clause shifts grammatical subject: instead of Israel acting, "the land" (ha'aretz) becomes the subject of the passive/reflexive niphal verb timmale' ("was filled"), so the land itself is presented as saturated by the presence of the people, rather than the people said to have filled it.

Differences between versions

The Septuagint renders the sequence with ηὐξήθησαν ("grew"), ἐπληθύνθησαν ("multiplied"), χυδαῖοι ἐγένοντο ("became numerous/widespread"), and κατίσχυον ("grew strong"), which does not carry the swarming-animal connotation present in the Hebrew yish'retzu (H8317). The Vulgate similarly shifts the imagery, translating with "quasi germinantes multiplicati sunt" ("multiplied as if sprouting"), replacing the animal-swarm nuance with a botanical one (germination/sprouting) not present in the Hebrew root.