Exodus 15:19

Summary

Exodus 15:19 closes the Song of the Sea by restating in prose the event just celebrated in poetry: Pharaoh's horse entered the sea with his chariotry and horsemen, Yehovah brought the sea's waters back over them, while the Israelites walked on dry ground through the middle of the sea. The verse functions as a causal or explanatory clause (introduced by ki) grounding the preceding song.

Key words

• ki ("for/that/if", H3588A) — a subordinating particle opening the verse; it can mark causation ("for") or introduce a subordinate temporal/conditional clause ("when"), which affects whether the verse explains the song or narrates a further event.
• va ("it came", H0935G) — qal perfect of the verb "to come/enter," third person masculine singular, agreeing with the singular collective noun sus ("horse", H5483M) that follows.
• va-yashev ("and he brought back", H7725G) — hiphil (causative) form with the narrative vav, meaning Yehovah caused the waters to return; the hiphil stem shifts the verb from simple "return" (qal) to a causative "make return."
• hal'khu ("they walked", H1980I) — qal perfect, third person plural, describing the Israelites' completed action of walking, paired with ba-yabbashah ("on the dry ground", H3004).
• be-tokh ("in the middle of", H8432) — construct noun specifying location, tying the Israelites' walking to the same space (the sea) where Pharaoh's forces were submerged.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence opens with ki (H3588A), a particle whose function is ambiguous between causal ("for") and temporal/conditional ("when") readings — this affects whether the verse is read as justifying the song's preceding praise or as an added narrative note. The subject sus Par'oh ("horse of Pharaoh", H5483M + H6547J) is grammatically singular but functions collectively, followed by two prepositional phrases built on construct nouns with pronominal suffixes — be-rikhbo ("with his chariot[ry]", H7393G) and u-ve-farashav ("and with his horsemen", H6571B) — both marked as "his," referring back to Pharaoh.

The narrative continues with the vav-consecutive verb va-yashev (H7725G), a hiphil form indicating that Yehovah performed a causative action: he did not merely let waters return, but made them return, upon the Egyptians. The object is marked explicitly with the direct object marker 'et (H0853) before mei ha-yam ("the waters of the sea", H4325G), specifying exactly what was brought back.

The final clause pairs bnei Yisra'el ("the sons/people of Israel", H1121G) as subject of hal'khu (H1980I, qal perfect), contrasted structurally with the Egyptians' fate through the repeated phrase "in the sea" (ba-yam, H3220G) — appearing three times across the verse, framing both the Egyptians' entry and destruction and the Israelites' safe passage within the same geographic reference point.