Exodus 15:17

Summary

The verse describes bringing and planting a people on "the mountain of your inheritance," identified as a place prepared for divine dwelling. It closes with two clauses stating that this sanctuary was "made" by the addressee and "established" by "your hands," using two different Hebrew divine designations.

Key words

• te.vi.'Emo ("you will bring them", H0935P) — hiphil (causative) imperfect with a 3rd person plural suffix "them" (H9038); the causative stem marks the action of causing the object to enter/arrive, and the imperfect places it as ongoing/future.
• ti.ta.'Emo ("and you will plant them", H5193) — qal imperfect linked by the conjunction ve ("and", H9002); paired with the previous verb, it continues the sequence of future action rather than marking simple past narration.
• na.cha.la.te.kha ("your inheritance", H5159) — feminine singular noun in construct form, bound to har ("mountain of", H2022G) to form the phrase "mountain of your inheritance," and further suffixed with "your" (H9021).
• pa.'Al.ta ("you have made", H6466) — qal perfect, marking a completed action, contrasting grammatically with the imperfects earlier in the verse.
• ko.Nu ("they have established", H3559H) — piel (intensive) perfect, 3rd person plural, agreeing with yadeikha ("your hands", H3027G) as subject; the piel stem intensifies the sense of firm establishment.

What the text says

The verse opens with two verbs in the imperfect (te.vi.'Emo, ti.ta.'Emo), both carrying the 3rd masculine plural suffix "them" (H9038), describing an action not yet completed — bringing and planting. This pair is followed by a construct chain, har ("mountain of", H2022G) + nachalatekha ("your inheritance", H5159), which grammatically binds "mountain" tightly to "your inheritance," producing a single compound expression rather than two separate ideas.

The second half of the verse shifts grammatical aspect: pa.'Alta ("you have made", H6466) and ko.Nu ("they have established", H3559H) are both in the perfect, indicating completed action, in contrast to the imperfects at the verse's start. This aspectual shift places the "bringing" and "planting" as forthcoming, while the "making" and "establishing" of the sanctuary are treated as already accomplished. The verse also contains two distinct divine designations — Yehovah (H3068G) and 'Adonai (H0136) — each introduced as a vocative address alongside a noun (miqqedash, "a sanctuary", H4720, and the completed-action clauses).

Differences between versions

The Hebrew text uses two distinct terms, Yehovah (H3068G) and 'Adonai (H0136), as separate vocatives. Both the LXX (κύριε, κύριε) and the Vulgate (Domine, Domine) render these two Hebrew terms with the same repeated word, collapsing the distinction between the two Hebrew designations into a single term appearing twice.