Exodus 12:36

Summary

The verse states that Yehovah caused the Egyptians to view the Israelite people favorably, which led the Egyptians to grant their requests, and as a result the Israelites stripped the Egyptians of goods. The sentence has three sequential actions linked by narrative vav forms.

Key words

• natan ("he gave", H5414) — qal perfect, a completed action attributed directly to Yehovah as subject.
• chen ("favor of", H2580) — masculine singular construct, forming a construct chain "favor of the people," meaning the favor belonged to or concerned the people.
• 'einei ("eyes of", H5869) — feminine dual construct, part of the idiom "in the eyes of Egypt," meaning "in the sight/perception of."
• yash'ilum ("they granted [the] request", H7592) — hiphil (causative) narrative form with 3rd person masculine plural subject and "them" suffix, indicating Egypt caused something to be lent/granted to the Israelites.
• y'natzlu ("they plundered", H5337) — piel (intensive) narrative form, 3rd person masculine plural, marking an intensified action of stripping/despoiling.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence opens with va-Yehovah natan ("and Yehovah gave"), placing Yehovah as the grammatical subject of the first verb, natan ("he gave", H5414), in the qal perfect — a straightforward completed action. The object is the construct phrase chen ha-'am ("favor of the people", H2580 + H5971A), meaning the favor itself, not the people, is what was "given." This favor is located be-'einei Mitzrayim ("in the eyes of Egypt", H5869 + H4714), an idiomatic construction meaning "in the perception/estimation of Egypt."

The clause then shifts subject through two narrative-vav verbs, both referring back to Egypt as the acting party in the first case. Yash'ilum ("they granted their request", H7592) is a hiphil (causative) form with a 3rd person masculine plural subject and a pronominal suffix -m ("them", H9038) referring to the Israelites — grammatically, this verb indicates that the Egyptians were caused to lend or grant something to the Israelites, following from the favor Yehovah had given them in Egyptian eyes.

The final verb, y'natzlu ("they plundered", H5337), is piel (intensive), with the subject now shifting to the Israelites, who are the ones performing the stripping. The direct object marker 'et (H0853) precedes Mitzrayim ("Egypt", H4714), marking Egypt as the object being stripped. The piel stem intensifies the action, marking it as more thorough than a simple qal form would suggest.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders chen ha-'am ("favor of the people") as τὴν χάριν τῷ λαῷ αὐτοῦ ("the favor to his people"), adding a possessive "his" (αὐτοῦ) not explicit in the Hebrew construct chain. The LXX also renders yash'ilum with ἔχρησαν αὐτοῖς ("they lent to them"), while the Vulgate renders it as "ut commodarent eis" ("so that they might lend to them"), framing it as a purpose clause rather than a separate narrative action as in the Hebrew's sequential vav construction.