Exodus 15:3

Summary

The verse presents two short nominal clauses, each with Yehovah (H3068) as subject. The first identifies him as "a man of war," the second states that Yehovah is his name. The construction repeats the divine name twice, framing the whole verse as a naming formula built on a construct phrase.

Key words

• Yehovah ("Yehovah", H3068) — appears twice, once as subject of the first clause and once as subject of the second; the repetition creates a parallel structure rather than a single continuous sentence.
• 'ish ("man of", H0376) — masculine singular noun in construct state, meaning it cannot stand alone but must be bound to the following noun to form the phrase "man of war."
• milchamah ("war", H4421) — feminine singular noun, the absolute noun completing the construct chain begun by 'ish.
• shem ("name of", H8034) — masculine singular noun in construct state, requiring the following pronominal suffix to complete its meaning.
• -o ("his", H9023) — pronominal suffix attached to shem, producing shemo ("his name"), which closes the second clause.

What the text says

The verse is built from two verbless (nominal) clauses, a common Biblical Hebrew pattern where predication is expressed simply by juxtaposing subject and predicate without a copular verb. In the first clause, Yehovah stands as subject and 'ish milchamah ("man of war") as predicate; the construct relationship between 'ish and milchamah binds the two nouns into a single descriptive unit, functionally similar to a compound noun. In the second clause, Yehovah again is the subject, and shemo ("his name") — itself a construct noun plus suffix — serves as predicate, producing the sense "Yehovah, his name is Yehovah," a self-referential naming formula. The double occurrence of Yehovah is a feature the Hebrew grammar makes explicit through simple repetition rather than pronoun substitution.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the first clause with a participial phrase, syntribōn polemous ("crushing wars"), rather than the construct noun phrase "man of war" found in the Hebrew 'ish milchamah. The Vulgate uses "vir pugnator" ("a fighting man") for the same phrase, closer to the Hebrew construct sense. In the second clause, the Vulgate substitutes "Omnipotens" ("Almighty") for the second occurrence of the divine name, where the Hebrew text repeats Yehovah itself; the LXX instead reads kyrios onoma autō ("Lord is his name"), preserving the repetition of the divine title as in the Hebrew.