Exodus 14:15

Summary

Yehovah addresses Moses with a rhetorical question about his crying out, then issues two commands: to speak to the people of Israel and thereby set them in motion. The verse moves from divine questioning to direct imperative instruction.

Key words

• titz.'Ak ("are you crying out", H6817) — qal imperfect, second person masculine singular, expressing an action in progress or continuing into the present moment; combined with the interrogative mah ("why?", H4100), it forms a rhetorical question rather than a request for information.
• da.Ber ("speak", H1696) — piel (intensive stem) imperative, masculine singular; the piel stem here carries the sense of authoritative or directed speech, distinct from the simple qal.
• be.nei- ("[the] people of", H1121) — masculine plural construct form, meaning it must be bound to the following noun Yis.ra.'El ("Israel", H3478) to form the phrase "sons/people of Israel."
• yi.Sa.'u ("they may set out", H5265) — qal imperfect with prefixed ve ("and", H9002), third person masculine plural; the vav-plus-imperfect construction here expresses purpose or result ("so that they may set out") following the imperative da.Ber.
• 'e.La + i ("to me", H0413 + H9030) — preposition with first-person pronominal suffix, marking Moses as the object toward whom the crying out (titz.'Ak) is directed.

What the text says

The verse opens with the standard narrative formula va-yo.mer ("and he said", H9001+H0559), introducing direct speech from Yah.weh (H3068) to mo.Sheh (H4872). The divine speech itself has two parts. First, a question built on mah ("why?", H4100) plus the qal imperfect titz.'Ak ("are you crying out", H6817) — the imperfect aspect indicates an action perceived as ongoing rather than a single past event, and the interrogative mah frames the utterance as rhetorical rather than seeking new information, since Yehovah already knows the situation.

Second, two commands linked in sequence: da.Ber ("speak", H1696), a piel imperative addressed to Moses, followed by ve-yi.Sa.'u ("so they may set out", H5265), a qal imperfect with prefixed vav functioning as a purpose clause. The grammar here creates a chain: Moses is commanded to speak, and the result/purpose of that speech is that the be.nei-Yis.ra.'El ("people of Israel", H1121+H3478) will set out. The construct form be.nei- cannot stand alone grammatically; it requires the following proper name to complete its meaning, reinforcing that the entire nation, not an individual, is in view.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders titz.'Ak ("are you crying out", H6817) with βοᾷς ("you shout/cry"), a close semantic match. The Vulgate uses clamas ("you cry out"), also aligning with the Hebrew qal imperfect sense of an ongoing vocal action. For the closing verb yi.Sa.'u ("they may set out", H5265), the LXX has ἀναζευξάτωσαν ("let them break camp/depart"), an imperative form, while the Vulgate's ut proficiscantur ("that they may set out") mirrors the Hebrew's purpose-clause structure more directly than the LXX's imperative rendering.