Exodus 14:11

Summary

The Israelites confront Moses with two rhetorical questions after being led into the wilderness: they ask sarcastically whether the absence of graves in Egypt is why they were brought out to die, and then ask what he has done to them by bringing them out of Egypt.

Key words

• va-yomeru ("and they said", H0559) — narrative vav plus qal verb, marking the next event in the story sequence; the subject "they" refers to the people speaking collectively to Moses.
• ha-mibbeli ("¿because not...", H9008+H9006+H1097) — a compound of the interrogative particle ha with mi- ("because/from") and beli ("not"), forming a rhetorical question structure that in Hebrew literally piles up negation and questioning before the verb arrives.
• ein-qevarim ("there are not graves", H0369+H6913) — construct existential negation followed by the plural noun qevarim ("graves", H6913); this phrase is the object of the accusatory question, asserting a (false) lack as the ironic reason for their removal from Egypt.
• leqachtanu ("you took us", H3947G) — qal perfect with 1st person plural suffix -nu ("us"), a completed action verb showing Moses as the grammatical subject who "took" the people.
• le-hotsi'anu ("in bringing us out", H3318H) — hiphil (causative) infinitive with suffix -nu, indicating the causative sense "to cause to go out"; the hiphil stem marks that Moses caused the exit, distinct from a simple qal "to go out."

What the text says

The verse opens with the narrative va-yomeru ("and they said", H0559) introducing direct speech directed 'el-Mosheh ("to Moses", H4872). The first question is built on a dense grammatical stack: the interrogative ha (H9008) attaches to mi- ("because", H9006), which attaches to beli ("not", H1097), followed by the existential negator ein ("there is not", H0369) governing the plural noun qevarim ("graves", H6913). This creates a doubled negation-question structure that intensifies the rhetorical, accusatory tone — the Hebrew grammar itself performs the irony by requiring the listener to parse multiple layers of "not" before reaching the noun "graves."

The main clause verb leqachtanu ("you took us", H3947G) is a qal perfect, indicating a completed past action, followed by the infinitive lamut ("to die", H4191) expressing purpose or result — "to take us in order that we die." The second question repeats this pattern with mah-zot 'asita lanu ("what is this you have done to us", H6213A), another qal perfect, followed by the hiphil infinitive le-hotsi'anu ("in your bringing us out", H3318H). The hiphil stem here marks causation: Moses did not simply "go out" but "caused [the people] to go out," a nuance the causative form encodes morphologically rather than through a separate word.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the compound negative-interrogative ha-mibbeli as Παρὰ τὸ μὴ ὑπάρχειν ("because of the not existing"), collapsing the layered Hebrew particles into a single Greek causal clause without an explicit question marker at that point, though the following clause is punctuated as a question. The Vulgate uses Forsitan ("perhaps"), introducing a note of tentative supposition not morphologically present in the Hebrew's direct rhetorical question. The LXX also renders lamut ("to die", H4191) as θανατῶσαι ("to kill/put to death"), a more forceful causative sense than the Hebrew qal infinitive "to die."