Exodus 14:19

Summary

The verse describes two consecutive movements: first "the angel of God" (mal'akh ha-'Elohim) who had been going before the camp of Israel repositions himself behind it; then "the pillar of the cloud" ('ammud he-'anan) does the same, moving from in front of the people to a position behind them.

Key words

• va-yissa' — "and he/it set out" (H5265): a wayyiqtol narrative verb form, used twice (for the angel and for the pillar), marking each movement as a discrete event in the story's timeline.
• mal'akh — "angel/messenger of" (H4397), construct form: linked directly to ha-'Elohim ("the God", H430) as "angel of God," a bound phrase rather than two separate nouns.
• ha-holekh — "the one going/who had been going" (H1980), qal participle with definite article: functions as a relative clause describing what the angel had been doing (going before the camp) before the change in position.
• li-fnei / mi-pnei — "to the face of" / "from the face of" (H6440), construct plural of "face" used prepositionally: the same root noun appears first as "before" (direction the angel/cloud used to occupy) and then, negated by direction, as "from before," marking the reversal of position.
• me-'acharei-hem — "from behind them" (H310 + H9038 suffix): a prepositional phrase with pronominal suffix "them," referring to the camp of Israel, stating the new location after the movement.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built as two parallel clauses, each introduced by the narrative verb va-yissa' ("and he/it set out," H5265): first for mal'akh ha-'Elohim ("the angel of God"), then for 'ammud he-'anan ("the pillar of the cloud"). Each subject is described by where it had been (li-fnei machaneh Yisra'el, "before the camp of Israel," using the participle ha-holekh) and where it moved to (me-'acharei-hem, "from behind them" / "behind them"), forming a chiastic contrast between "before" (li-fnei / mi-fnei) and "behind" (me-'acharei). The repetition of the same verb yissa' for both the angel and the cloud-pillar in the Hebrew text presents them as performing the identical action in tandem, each narrated as its own wayyiqtol clause.

Differences between versions

The Vulgate (VULCLEM) compresses the two Hebrew clauses into one sentence: it uses a participle ("Tollensque se angelus") for the angel's movement, then attaches the cloud's motion with "et cum eo pariter columna nubis... post tergum," rather than repeating a finite verb parallel to va-yissa' for the cloud as the Hebrew and the LXX (ἐξῆρεν... ἐξῆρεν) both do. The LXX preserves the Hebrew's double use of the same verb (ἐξῆρεν for both subjects), matching the Hebrew's parallel structure more closely than the Vulgate does.