Exodus 10:3

Summary

Moses and Aaron come before Pharaoh and deliver a message from Yehovah, "the God of the Hebrews," asking how long Pharaoh will refuse to humble himself before him, followed by the command to let the people go so they may serve him.

Key words

• va-yyavo ("and he went", H0935G) — qal narrative form (vav-consecutive), the first in a chain of narrative verbs that structures the verse as sequential action.
• koh ("thus", H3541) — adverb introducing the formal messenger-speech pattern typical of prophetic/divine announcements.
• me'anta ("you have refused", H3985) — piel perfect, an intensive stem giving the sense of a firm, repeated refusal rather than a single hesitation.
• le'anot ("to humble yourself", H6031B) — niphal infinitive; the niphal stem marks the action as reflexive/passive, i.e., Pharaoh humbling himself, not being humbled by another explicitly stated agent.
• ya'avduni ("they may serve me", H5647H) — qal imperfect with vav, expressing purpose or result following the imperative shallach ("let go", H7971H).

What the text says

The verse opens with two vav-consecutive verbs, va-yyavo ("he went", H0935G) and va-yyomru ("they said", H0559), which carry the narrative forward as a single continuous action: Moses and Aaron arrive and speak. The speech itself is framed by the formula koh amar Yehovah ("thus says Yehovah", H3541 + H0559 + H3068G), a standard construction for reporting a divine message, followed by the construct phrase elohei ha-'ivrim ("God of the Hebrews", H0430G + H5680), identifying Yehovah in relation to the people.

The rhetorical question 'ad-matai me'anta le'anot mi-panai ("until when have you refused to humble yourself from before me") combines the piel perfect me'anta (H3985), indicating a completed and intensified refusal, with the niphal infinitive le'anot (H6031B), which frames humbling as something Pharaoh would do to himself rather than as an action imposed by an external agent named in the clause. The final clause pairs the piel imperative shallach ("let go", H7971H) with the qal imperfect ya'avdu ("they may serve", H5647H) plus the object suffix -ni ("me", H9030), producing a purpose structure: release the people so that they may serve.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew niphal infinitive le'anot ("to humble yourself", H6031B) is rendered in the LXX as entrapēnai ("be put to shame/turned"), and in the Vulgate as subjici ("be subjected"). These are three distinct semantic renderings of the same underlying Hebrew root. Similarly, the final verb ya'avduni ("they may serve me", H5647H) is translated in the LXX as latreusōsin ("serve/worship"), while the Vulgate uses sacrificet ("sacrifice"), narrowing the sense of general service to a specific cultic act. The BSB translation "worship Me" reflects an interpretive choice consistent with the LXX's cultic framing rather than a strictly literal rendering of "serve."