Exodus 12:51

Summary

The verse marks the precise day on which Yehovah caused the Israelites to leave Egypt, closing the Exodus narrative sequence. The Hebrew emphasizes both the exactness of the day and the fact that Israel left in organized military-style groups.

Key words

• va-yehi ("and it was", H1961) — narrative vav-consecutive form, the standard verb that opens a new narrative unit in Biblical Hebrew, often rendered "and it came to pass."
• 'etzem ("substance of", H6106) — feminine singular construct noun, here used idiomatically with "day" to mean "the very substance/bone of this day," an intensifying expression.
• hotzi' ("he brought out", H3318) — hiphil (causative) perfect, marking completed action; the causative stem indicates that the subject actively caused the object to go out, rather than the object leaving on its own.
• Yehovah (H3068) — the subject of the causative verb, the agent performing the action of bringing out.
• tziv'otam ("their hosts", H6635) — feminine plural construct noun with third-person masculine plural suffix, referring to organized groups or companies.

What the text says

The sentence opens with the narrative marker va-yehi ("and it was", H1961), a formulaic device that signals a transition in the story. This is followed by the idiom be-'etzem ha-yom ha-zeh — literally "in the substance/bone of this day" (H6106 + H3117 + H2088) — an expression that intensifies "day" to mean "this very day," pinpointing the exact moment of the event rather than a general timeframe.

The main clause places the verb before the subject, following typical Hebrew narrative word order: hotzi' ("he brought out", H3318) precedes Yehovah (H3068). The verb is in the hiphil stem, a causative conjugation, indicating that Yehovah is grammatically marked as the direct cause of Israel's departure — the text frames the exodus as something done to the people by an external agent, not an action Israel initiated. The object, bene Yisra'el ("the people of Israel", H1121 + H3478), is marked by the untranslated direct object particle 'et (H0853).

The closing phrase 'al-tziv'otam ("on/according to their hosts", H5921 + H6635 + H9028) uses a plural construct noun with a possessive suffix, describing Israel's departure as organized by groups or divisions, a term elsewhere used for military or tribal formations.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders be-'etzem ha-yom ha-zeh simply as ἐν τῇ ἡμέρᾳ ἐκείνῃ ("in that day"), omitting any equivalent to the intensifying idiom built on 'etzem ("substance/bone"). For 'al-tziv'otam ("according to their hosts"), the LXX has σὺν δυνάμει αὐτῶν ("with their power/force"), using a singular noun where the Hebrew has a plural construct noun. The Vulgate's per turmas suas ("by their troops") preserves the plural sense of organized groups more closely than the LXX's singular δυνάμει.