Exodus 10:14

Summary

The locust swarm ascends over the entire land of Egypt and settles across all its territory, described as extremely severe. The text states that no comparable locust plague had occurred before it, nor would one occur afterward.

Key words

• 'ar.Beh ("locust[s]", H0697) — masculine singular noun, used collectively for the swarm; appears twice, first with the definite article ha ("the locust"), then indefinitely in the comparison clause "there had not been thus a locust like it."
• ka.Ved ("heavy", H3515) — masculine singular adjective paired with me.'Od ("very", H3966) to intensify the description of the swarm's severity; the adjective lacks a copula, functioning as a predicate describing the preceding clause.
• fa.na ("before", H6440G) with suffix v ("his/its") — construct plural noun meaning literally "faces of," combined with the preposition Le ("to", H9005) to form "before it," marking the temporal reference point for the comparison.
• 'a.cha.Ra ("after", H0310A) with suffix v ("his/its") — construct form creating the mirrored temporal phrase "after it," parallel to le.fanav ("before it"), establishing the two-sided uniqueness claim.
• khen ("thus", H3651C) — adverb repeated in both halves of the comparison (lo'-hayah khen / lo' yihyeh-khen), reinforcing the parallel structure between past negation and future negation.

What the text says

The verse divides into two narrative actions followed by a descriptive and comparative statement. The two verbs ya'al ("it came up", H5927G) and yanach ("it settled down", H5117) are both qal narrative forms, chaining the sequence: the locust swarm ascends, then settles. Both verbs are grammatically singular (agreeing with the collective singular 'arbeh), even though the referent is a mass of locusts, which is typical for collective nouns in Hebrew.

The comparative clause uses two symmetrical constructions built on lo' hayah ("it had not been", perfect tense) and lo' yihyeh ("it will not be", imperfect tense). This tense shift — perfect for the past comparison, imperfect for the future comparison — marks a temporal contrast: completed non-occurrence before the event versus anticipated non-occurrence after it. The phrase lifanav ("before it") and acharav ("after it") use construct nouns with third-person masculine singular suffixes referring back to the locust swarm, creating a chronological frame centered on the event itself rather than on the speaker.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders 'arbeh with a feminine pronoun αὐτήν ("it," referring back to ἀκρίς, "locust," treated as feminine in Greek), while the Hebrew treats 'arbeh as masculine throughout. The Vulgate renders the singular collective 'arbeh with plural verbs and adjectives (ascenderunt, sederunt, innumerabiles), shifting the Hebrew's grammatical singular into a Latin plural construction, and adds innumerabiles ("innumerable"), an interpretive expansion not present as a separate lexical item in the Hebrew kaved me'od ("very heavy/severe").