Exodus 10:22

Summary

Moses stretches out his hand toward the sky, and a thick darkness covers the entire land of Egypt for three days. The verse describes both the gesture that triggers the plague and its immediate result.

Key words

• va-yet ("and he stretched out", H5186) — qal narrative verb, third person masculine, marking the sequential action that begins the verse.
• yado ("his hand", H3027G) — construct noun with pronominal suffix "his," specifying the body part used in the gesture.
• choshekh ("darkness of", H2822) — construct noun linking directly to the following word, forming a double expression of darkness.
• afelah ("darkness", H0653) — feminine singular noun paired with choshekh, intensifying the description rather than naming a second phenomenon.
• sheloshet yamim ("three of days", H7969 + H3117G) — construct number + plural noun, indicating the duration of the event.

What the text says

The verse opens with the narrative vav construction va-yet, typical of Biblical Hebrew storytelling, which chains this action to the preceding narrative. Moses is the subject, and the object yado ("his hand", H3027G) takes the object marker 'et (H0853), showing that the hand is the direct object of the stretching action, directed 'al ha-shamayim ("to the heavens", H5921A + H8064).

The second clause also opens with narrative vav (va-yehi, "and it was", H1961), introducing the resulting state. The phrase choshekh-afelah combines two nouns for darkness: choshekh (H2822) stands in construct form, meaning it is grammatically bound to afelah (H0653), producing a compound expression best understood as "a darkness of darkness" or an intensified single concept rather than two distinct terms. This construct chain functions to emphasize thickness or totality of the darkness rather than list separate phenomena.

The location is given through a chain of construct nouns: be-khol ("in all of", H3605) leading to 'erets Mitzrayim ("land of Egypt", H0776G + H4714G), a standard construct phrase for "the land of Egypt." The time span sheloshet yamim ("three of days") uses the construct numeral form typical of Hebrew counting expressions, meaning "a three-some of days," i.e., a period of three days.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the Hebrew double expression choshekh-afelah ("darkness of darkness") with three terms — σκότος ("darkness"), γνόφος ("thick darkness/gloom"), and θύελλα ("storm/tempest") — expanding the Hebrew's two-word construct into three distinct nouns, the last of which (θύελλα) introduces a meteorological element ("storm") not present in the Hebrew wording. The Vulgate uses tenebrae horribiles ("horrible darkness"), reducing the Hebrew construct pair to a single noun modified by an adjective, differing from both the Hebrew's construct-noun structure and the LXX's three-term expansion.