Exodus 10:6
וּמָלְאוּ בָתֶּיךָ וּבָתֵּי כָל־עֲבָדֶיךָ וּבָתֵּי כָל־מִצְרַיִם אֲשֶׁר לֹֽא־רָאוּ אֲבֹתֶיךָ וַאֲבוֹת אֲבֹתֶיךָ מִיּוֹם הֱיוֹתָם עַל־הָאֲדָמָה עַד הַיּוֹם הַזֶּה וַיִּפֶן וַיֵּצֵא מֵעִם פַּרְעֹֽה׃
✦ Hebrew interlinear
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✦ The same verse in five languages
וּמָלְא֨וּ בָתֶּ֜יךָ וּבָתֵּ֣י כָל־עֲבָדֶיךָ֮ וּבָתֵּ֣י כָל־מִצְרַיִם֒ אֲשֶׁ֨ר לֹֽא־רָא֤וּ אֲבֹתֶ֙יךָ֙ וַאֲב֣וֹת אֲבֹתֶ֔יךָ מִיּ֗וֹם הֱיוֹתָם֙ עַל־הָ֣אֲדָמָ֔ה עַ֖ד הַיּ֣וֹם הַזֶּ֑ה וַיִּ֥פֶן וַיֵּצֵ֖א מֵעִ֥ם פַּרְעֹֽה׃
καὶ πλησθήσονταί σου αἱ οἰκίαι καὶ αἱ οἰκίαι τῶν θεραπόντων σου καὶ πᾶσαι αἱ οἰκίαι ἐν πάσῃ γῇ τῶν Αἰγυπτίων, ἃ οὐδέποτε ἑωράκασιν οἱ σου οὐδὲ οἱ πρόπαπποι αὐτῶν, ἀφ’ ἧς ἡμέρας γεγόνασιν ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς ἕως τῆς ἡμέρας ταύτης. καὶ ἐκκλίνας Μωυσῆς ἐξῆλθεν ἀπὸ Φαραώ.
Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0
Latin (Vulgate)
Et implebunt domos tuas, et servorum tuorum, et omnium Ægyptiorum, quantam non viderunt patres tui, et avi, ex quo orti sunt super terram, usque in præsentem diem. Avertitque se, et egressus est a Pharaone.
Llenarán tus palacios, las casas de tus funcionarios y las de todos los egipcios. Será algo que jamás vieron tus padres ni tus abuelos desde que vivieron en esta tierra hasta el día de hoy’”. Luego Moisés dio media vuelta y salió de la presencia del faraón.
Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)
Y llenarse han tus casas, y las casas de todos tus siervos, y las casas de todos los Egipcios, cual nunca vieron tus padres ni tus abuelos, desde que ellos fueron sobre la tierra hasta hoy. Y volvióse, y salió de con Faraón.
They will fill your houses and the houses of all your officials and every Egyptian — something neither your fathers nor your grandfathers have seen since the day they came into this land.’” Then Moses turned and left Pharaoh ’s presence.
✦ What the text says
Summary
The verse describes the extent of a coming plague (locusts, per context): the houses of Pharaoh, his officials, and all Egypt will be filled with them, in a degree unseen since Egypt's ancestors first settled the land. It closes with a narrative note: the speaker turns and exits from Pharaoh's presence.
Key words
- mal.'U ("they will be full", H4390) — qal sequential perfect (vav + perfect continuing a future sequence), giving the clause a future-tense force: "and [they] will be full."
- va.Tei.kha ("houses of you", H1004B) — masculine plural construct with 2ms suffix, opening a chain of three parallel construct phrases (your houses / your servants' houses / Egypt's houses).
- a.va.dei.kha ("your servants", H5650) — masculine plural construct with 2ms suffix, marking Pharaoh's officials as the second group affected.
- ra.'U ("they saw", H7200G) — qal perfect, negated by lo' ("not", H3808), describing a completed action never experienced.
- i.Yi.fen ("he turned", H6437G) — qal narrative (vav-consecutive imperfect), marking the shift from direct speech to narrated action.
What the text says
The Hebrew builds a triple construct chain — bateikha ("your houses"), batei kol-'avadeikha ("houses of all your servants"), batei kol-Mitzrayim ("houses of all Egypt") — each linked by the conjunction u ("and", H9002), escalating from Pharaoh's household to his officials' households to the entirety of Egypt. This structure places the subject before the verb mal.'U is even stated in full grammatical form (the verb precedes but the syntax accumulates the subjects afterward), producing a rhetorical widening effect: what begins with one person's house ends with an entire nation's houses.
The relative clause introduced by asher ("which", H0834A) and negated by lo' ra'u ("they did not see", combining H3808 and H7200G) uses a qal perfect to mark an event never witnessed, intensified by the double genealogical layering avoteikha ("your ancestors", H0001G) and avot avoteikha ("ancestors of your ancestors", H0001G repeated). The temporal span is bounded by two prepositional phrases: mi-yom heyotam ("from the day of their being", combining H9006, H3117G, and the infinitive H1961) "on the land" ('al ha-adamah, H0127I), extending "until this day" ('ad ha-yom ha-zeh, H5704 + H3117G + H2088).
The final clause shifts from direct discourse to narration using two consecutive vav-narrative verbs, va-yifen ("and he turned", H6437G) and va-yetze' ("and he went out", H3318G), both qal narrative forms marking sequential completed action, followed by me-'im Par'oh ("from with Pharaoh", H5973B + H6547J), describing physical departure from Pharaoh's presence.
Differences between versions
The Hebrew subject of va-yifen ("he turned") is unspecified by name in the base text (it grammatically continues from the surrounding narrative), while the LXX explicitly names the subject as Μωυσῆς ("Moses"), and the Vulgate also uses an unnamed reflexive construction ("avertitque se"), matching the Hebrew's lack of explicit naming at this point. The LXX renders avoteikha and avot avoteikha ("your ancestors" and "ancestors of your ancestors") as οἱ πατέρες σου οὐδὲ οἱ πρόπαπποι αὐτῶν ("your fathers nor their great-grandfathers"), a slightly different genealogical framing than the Hebrew's doubled "ancestors of ancestors" construction.
This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.