Exodus 10:23
לֹֽא־רָאוּ אִישׁ אֶת־אָחִיו וְלֹא־קָמוּ אִישׁ מִתַּחְתָּיו שְׁלֹשֶׁת יָמִים וּֽלְכָל־בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל הָיָה אוֹר בְּמוֹשְׁבֹתָֽם׃
✦ Hebrew interlinear
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✦ The same verse in five languages
לֹֽא־רָא֞וּ אִ֣ישׁ אֶת־אָחִ֗יו וְלֹא־קָ֛מוּ אִ֥ישׁ מִתַּחְתָּ֖יו שְׁלֹ֣שֶׁת יָמִ֑ים וּֽלְכָל־בְּנֵ֧י יִשְׂרָאֵ֛ל הָ֥יָה א֖וֹר בְּמוֹשְׁבֹתָֽם׃
καὶ οὐκ εἶδεν οὐδεὶς τὸν ἀδελφὸν αὐτοῦ τρεῖς ἡμέρας, καὶ οὐκ ἐξανέστη οὐδεὶς ἐκ τῆς κοίτης αὐτοῦ τρεῖς ἡμέρας· πᾶσι δὲ τοῖς υἱοῖς Ἰσραὴλ φῶς ἦν ἐν πᾶσιν οἷς κατεγίνοντο.
Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0
Latin (Vulgate)
Nemo vidit fratrem suum, nec movit se de loco in quo erat: ubicumque autem habitabant filii Israël, lux erat.
Las personas no podían verse unas a otras, y nadie salió de su casa en tres días. En cambio, todos los israelitas tenían luz en los lugares donde vivían.
Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)
Ninguno vió á su prójimo, ni nadie se levantó de su lugar en tres días; mas todos los hijos de Israel tenían luz en sus habitaciones.
No one could see anyone else, and for three days no one left his place. Yet all the Israelites had light in their dwellings.
✦ What the text says
Summary
The verse describes the effects of the plague of darkness: no individual could see his brother, and no one rose from where he was for three days, while all the Israelites had light where they lived. The Hebrew builds this through a distributive construction using repeated 'ish ("each one").
Key words
- ra'u ("they saw", H7200) — qal perfect, 3rd person plural, marking a completed state during the darkness: total absence of sight.
- 'ish ("each/anyone", H0376) — appears twice (lines 3 and 10), functioning distributively: "no man [saw] his brother," "no man [rose]," rather than a collective plural.
- qamu ("they rose", H6965) — qal perfect, describing the completed non-action of not standing up or leaving one's spot.
- tachtav ("under him", H8478) — construct + suffix, literally "from under him," idiomatically "from his place," describing physical immobility.
- 'or ("light", H0216) — feminine singular noun, contrasted with the darkness implied in the prior clauses, present specifically bemoshevotam ("in their dwellings", H4186).
What the text says
The Hebrew sentence is built on two parallel negative clauses, each using the distributive singular 'ish ("a man/each one") rather than a plural subject: lo ra'u 'ish 'et-'achiv ("a man did not see his brother") and velo qamu 'ish mitachtav ("and a man did not rise from under him," i.e., from his place). This distributive phrasing emphasizes individual immobility rather than a general condition affecting the group as a whole. The phrase shloshet yamim ("three days", H7969+H3117) appears once, attached to the second clause, indicating the duration of the immobility.
The final clause shifts from negation to affirmation and from individuals to the whole people: ulechol bnei Yisra'el hayah 'or bemoshevotam ("and to all the sons of Israel there was light in their dwelling places"). The verb hayah ("it was", H1961) is a simple qal perfect, stating a completed fact rather than a process.
Differences between versions
The LXX repeats "three days" (τρεῖς ἡμέρας) after both clauses, while the Hebrew places shloshet yamim only once, after the second clause. The LXX also renders mitachtav ("from under him") as ἐκ τῆς κοίτης αὐτοῦ ("from his bed"), a more specific image than the Hebrew's general "from his place." The Vulgate omits the three-day duration entirely, stating only "nec movit se de loco in quo erat" ("nor did he move from the place where he was"), without a time reference corresponding to shloshet yamim.
This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.