Exodus 15:22

Summary

The verse narrates Moses leading Israel away from the sea of reeds into the wilderness of Shur, where they walked three days without finding water. It marks a transition from the crossing of the sea to the wilderness journey, opening the narrative sequence of complaints and provisions that follows.

Key words

• va-yassa' ("he led out", H5265) — hiphil narrative form, causative: Moses does not merely go but causes Israel to depart/travel.
• Yam-Suf (H3220G + H5488G) — construct chain "sea of reed[s]," the geographic marker from which the people move away.
• midbar-Shur (H4057B + H7793) — construct chain "wilderness of Shur," naming the destination region.
• shelloshet yamim ("three of days", H7969 + H3117G) — construct number + noun, giving the specific duration of travel before the water shortage is noted.
• lo-matze'u ("they did not find", H3808 + H4672) — negation with qal perfect, stating a completed, negative result: the search or expectation of water ended without success.

What the text says

The verse is built on three narrative verbs joined by the vav-consecutive: va-yassa' ("he led out"), va-yetze'u ("they went out"), and va-yelekhu ("they went"). This chain moves the action forward step by step: first Moses' causative action of leading Israel out from the Yam-Suf, then the people's own departure into the midbar-Shur, then their continued walking for shelloshet yamim ("three days") ba-midbar ("in the wilderness"). The direct object marker 'et before Yisra'el (H0853) confirms that Israel is the object being led by Moses, reinforcing the causative sense of the hiphil verb in position 2.

The final clause shifts from narrative vav-forms to a simple ve-lo ("and not") plus qal perfect matze'u ("they found"). This construction states a completed, negated event — the people did not find mayim ("water", H4325G) — rather than an ongoing or repeated failure to search. The construct phrase shelloshet-yamim quantifies the walking before this outcome is recorded, tying the duration of travel directly to the lack of water discovered at its end.

Differences between versions

The LXX adds a purpose clause absent in the Hebrew: οὐχ ηὕρισκον ὕδωρ ὥστε πιεῖν ("they did not find water to drink"), specifying drinking as the goal, where the Hebrew simply states lo-matze'u mayim ("they did not find water") without stating purpose. The LXX also renders the two Hebrew narrative verbs va-yassa' and va-yetze'u as two Greek verbs (ἐξῆρεν... ἤγαγεν) attributing both the departure and the leading-in to Moses' agency, while the Hebrew separates Moses' causative act (yassa') from the people's own subsequent action (yetze'u, "they went out"). The Vulgate's tulit ("he took/led") corresponds to the hiphil sense of yassa', aligning more closely with the causative Hebrew form than the LXX's twofold verb split.