Exodus 13:3
וַיֹּאמֶר מֹשֶׁה אֶל־הָעָם זָכוֹר אֶת־הַיּוֹם הַזֶּה אֲשֶׁר יְצָאתֶם מִמִּצְרַיִם מִבֵּית עֲבָדִים כִּי בְּחֹזֶק יָד הוֹצִיא יְהֹוָה אֶתְכֶם מִזֶּה וְלֹא יֵאָכֵל חָמֵֽץ׃
✦ Hebrew interlinear
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✦ The same verse in five languages
וַיֹּ֨אמֶר מֹשֶׁ֜ה אֶל־הָעָ֗ם זָכ֞וֹר אֶת־הַיּ֤וֹם הַזֶּה֙ אֲשֶׁ֨ר יְצָאתֶ֤ם מִמִּצְרַ֙יִם֙ מִבֵּ֣ית עֲבָדִ֔ים כִּ֚י בְּחֹ֣זֶק יָ֔ד הוֹצִ֧יא יְהֹוָ֛ה אֶתְכֶ֖ם מִזֶּ֑ה וְלֹ֥א יֵאָכֵ֖ל חָמֵֽץ׃
Εἶπεν δὲ Μωυσῆς πρὸς τὸν λαόν Μνημονεύετε τὴν ἡμέραν ταύτην ἐν ἧ ἐξήλθατε ἐκ γῆς Αἰγύπτου, ἐξ οἴκου δουλίας· ἐν γὰρ χειρὶ κραταιᾷ ἐξήγαγεν ὑμᾶς Κύριος ἐντεῦθεν· καὶ οὐ βρωθήσεται ζύμη.
Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0
Latin (Vulgate)
Et ait Moyses ad populum: Mementote diei hujus in qua egressi estis de Ægypto et de domo servitutis, quoniam in manu forti eduxit vos Dominus de loco isto: ut non comedatis fermentatum panem.
Moisés le dijo al pueblo: “Acuérdense de este día en que salieron de Egipto, donde eran esclavos, porque con el gran poder de su mano Yehová los sacó de allí. Así que no coman nada que tenga levadura.
Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)
Y Moisés dijo al pueblo: Tened memoria de aqueste día, en el cual habéis salido de Egipto, de la casa de servidumbre; pues Jehová os ha sacado de aquí con mano fuerte: por tanto, no comeréis leudado.
So Moses told the people, “ Remember this day, the day you came out of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; for the LORD brought you out of it by the strength of His hand. And nothing leavened shall be eaten.
✦ What the text says
Summary
Moses instructs the people to remember the day of their departure from Egypt, described as leaving "a house of slaves," because Yehovah brought them out through the strength of his hand. The verse closes with a prohibition against eating anything leavened.
Key words
- zaKhor ("remember", H2142) — qal infinitive absolute used as a command; this verb form intensifies the imperative force rather than simply narrating an action.
- 'a.va.Dim ("slaves", H5650) — masculine plural noun in construct chain with Beit ("house of", H1004M), forming the phrase "house of slaves" describing Egypt.
- Cho.zek ("strength of", H2392) — masculine singular noun in construct with Yad ("hand", H3027H), producing "strength of hand," a construct pair expressing the means by which the exodus occurred.
- ho.Tzi' ("he brought out", H3318H) — hiphil (causative) perfect; the causative stem marks Yehovah as the one causing the people's departure, contrasting with yetza'tem ("you went out", H3318G, qal) earlier in the verse, which uses the same root in a non-causative form for the people's own action.
- ye.'a.Khel ("it will be eaten", H0398) — niphal (passive) imperfect; the passive voice removes a stated subject, so the text specifies only that leaven "will not be eaten," without naming who is forbidden to eat it.
What the text says
The verse opens with the narrative va-yomer ("and he said", H0559) construction typical of biblical Hebrew storytelling, introducing Moses' direct speech to ha-'Am ("the people", H5971A). The command zaKhor is grammatically distinctive: rather than a standard imperative form, the text uses the infinitive absolute, a construction that in Hebrew often heightens the emphatic or solemn quality of a directive without changing its basic meaning as "remember."
The clause structure moves from the qal verb yetza'tem ("you went out", H3318G) — describing the people's own past action of leaving Egypt — to the hiphil verb hotzi' ("he brought out", H3318H) from the same triliteral root, now describing Yehovah's causative action. This root-repetition with a stem shift places the people's experience of departure alongside Yehovah's role as the one who caused that departure, using the same verbal root in two different grammatical binyanim (verb stems).
The construct chains Beit 'avadim ("house of slaves") and chozek yad ("strength of hand") are typical Hebrew ways of building descriptive phrases by placing two nouns in sequence rather than using an adjective. The final clause employs the niphal (passive) form ye'akhel, stating that leaven "will not be eaten" without a grammatical subject performing the eating — the Hebrew grammar itself leaves the agent unspecified.
Differences between versions
The Vulgate renders the final clause as ut non comedatis fermentatum panem ("so that you shall not eat leavened bread"), supplying a second-person plural subject ("you") that is absent from the Hebrew's passive construction yeakhel ("it will be eaten", H0398). The LXX's οὐ βρωθήσεται ζύμη ("leaven will not be eaten") preserves the passive voice closer to the Hebrew niphal form, without specifying an agent.
This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.