Exodus 14:3

Summary

The verse reports what Pharaoh will say about the Israelites: that they are wandering in confusion in the land, and that the wilderness has shut them in. It functions as a narrative prediction of Pharaoh's reasoning, motivating his subsequent pursuit.

Key words

• 'a.Mar ("he will say", H0559) — qal sequential perfect, continuing the narrative chain; despite the perfect form, context marks it as a future action ("will say"), a common use of the sequential perfect in narrative Hebrew.
• ne.vu.Khim ("wandering in confusion", H0943) — niphal participle, masculine plural; the niphal stem often carries a passive or reflexive/stative nuance, here describing the Israelites' state as one of confusion rather than an action they perform on others.
• sa.Gar ("it has shut", H5462) — qal perfect, third person masculine singular; a completed action, with the subject being ha.mid.Bar ("the wilderness").
• mid.Bar ("wilderness", H4057B) — masculine singular noun with definite article ha. ("the"), the grammatical subject of the closing clause.
• 'a.lei.Hem ("on them", H5921A + H9038) — preposition with third person masculine plural suffix, marking the object enclosed by the wilderness.

What the text says

The verse opens with the narrative vav on 'a.Mar, linking it to the preceding context and introducing Pharaoh's anticipated speech. The content of that speech is a two-part statement about the Israelites. The first part uses the niphal participle ne.vu.Khim ("wandering in confusion") with the independent pronoun hem ("they"), forming a nominal-type clause: "confused are they in the land." The niphal form frames this as a state rather than an active behavior — the Israelites are depicted as being in a condition, not necessarily doing something to themselves.

The second clause reverses the grammatical relationship: here ha.mid.Bar ("the wilderness") is the subject of the qal perfect verb sa.Gar ("it has shut"), with the Israelites as the object via the suffixed preposition 'a.lei.Hem ("on them"). This shifts agency from the people to the terrain itself — the wilderness is the one enclosing them, not merely a location in which they are found.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders par.'Oh as speaking τῷ λαῷ αὐτοῦ ("to his people"), an addressee not present in the Hebrew, which has no stated audience for Pharaoh's statement. The Vulgate's coarctati sunt ("they are constrained/hemmed in") corresponds to ne.vu.Khim, but shifts the sense from "confusion" toward "physical constraint," differing from the BSB's "wandering in confusion." The LXX's πλανῶνται ("they wander/are led astray") likewise emphasizes movement over the niphal's stative confusion nuance.