Exodus 13:18

Summary

The verse states that God caused the Israelites to take a roundabout route through the wilderness toward the Sea of Reeds, rather than the direct road, and that the Israelites went up out of Egypt in a state described as chamushim ("arrayed for battle", H2571).

Key words

• va-yassev ("and he caused to go around", H5437G) — hiphil (causative) verbal form: God is the causer of the people's circuitous movement, not merely a guide walking with them.
• Elohim ("God", H0430G) — masculine plural noun functioning as the subject of the causative verb; grammatically plural but referring to a single subject in this clause.
• derekh ("way of", H1870K) — construct noun, linking directly to ha-midbar ("the wilderness", H4057B), forming the phrase "the way of the wilderness."
• yam-suf ("sea of reed[s]", H3220G + H5488G) — a construct chain naming the body of water toward which the route led.
• chamushim ("arrayed for battle", H2571) — qal passive participle, masculine plural, describing the condition of "the sons of Israel" (H1121G construct + H3478) as they went up; a participle rather than a finite verb, marking a state rather than an action.

What the text says

The sentence opens with the narrative vav (H9001) attached to the hiphil verb yassev, establishing God as the one who actively redirected the people's path, rather than the people choosing it themselves. The object marker 'et (H0853) precedes ha-'am ("the people", H5971A), confirming that "the people" is the direct object of God's causative action. The route itself is expressed through a chain of construct nouns — derekh ha-midbar ("the way of the wilderness") followed by yam suf ("sea of reeds") — stacking geographic descriptors without an intervening preposition, a construction that Hebrew allows but that requires added prepositions ("toward," "by way of") in translation.

The second clause is introduced by a new conjunction va (H9002, distinct in form from the initial narrative vav), followed by chamushim, a passive participle placed before its finite verb 'alu ("they went up", H5927G, qal perfect). This word order — participle before the verb — foregrounds the manner or state of the people ("arrayed") as they performed the action of going up, rather than treating it as a separate event. The subject bene-Yisra'el ("sons of Israel") is introduced only after the verb, in construct with Yisra'el itself.

Differences between versions

Where the Hebrew has chamushim ("arrayed for battle", H2571) modifying how the Israelites went up, the LXX renders this portion as πέμπτῃ δὲ γενεᾷ, "in the fifth generation," a temporal phrase referring to generational reckoning rather than to military array. The Vulgate's armati ("armed") and the English/Spanish versions (BSB "arrayed for battle," RV1909 "armados," SBLIBRE "armados y organizados como un ejército") follow the Hebrew sense of military preparedness, diverging from the LXX's generational reading at this point.