Exodus 15:5

Summary

Exodus 15:5 describes the sinking of the pursuers into the sea: the deep waters cover them, and they descend to the depths "like a stone." The verse uses two different Hebrew nouns for the body of water and two different verb aspects to depict the event.

Key words

• tehomot ("[the] deeps", H8415) — feminine plural noun, the grammatical subject of the first clause; a poetic term for deep or primordial waters.
• yekhasyumu ("they have covered", H3680) — piel (intensive) imperfect with a 3rd person masculine plural pronominal suffix ("them"); the piel stem intensifies the covering action, while the imperfect form is grammatically associated with ongoing or future aspect.
• yardu ("they went down", H3381) — qal (simple) perfect, denoting a completed action; contrasts in aspect with the preceding imperfect verb.
• metzolot ("[the] depths", H4688) — feminine plural noun, a second and distinct term for depth, different from tehomot.
• even ("a stone", H68) — feminine singular noun, the object of comparison introduced by kemo ("like", H3644).

What the text says

The verse is built on two parallel clauses. In the first, tehomot ("the deeps") functions as subject of yekhasyumu ("they have covered"), a piel imperfect verb carrying an intensive nuance from the piel stem. Although the imperfect form is typically associated with incomplete or future action, its use here alongside a following perfect verb is a feature of this poetic passage, producing two verbs with different grammatical aspect describing what appears to be the same narrative moment.

The second clause shifts to yardu ("they went down"), a qal perfect verb, indicating a completed action, followed by the prepositional phrase vimtzolot ("in the depths"), using metzolot — a noun distinct from tehomot though close in meaning ("depths" versus "deeps"). The clause closes with kemo-even ("like a stone"), a singular noun introduced by the comparative preposition kemo, providing a simile for the manner of descent. The grammatical alternation between imperfect and perfect verbs, and between two near-synonymous nouns for water depths, is characteristic of Hebrew poetic parallelism, where synonymous terms and varied verbal aspects are paired for rhetorical effect rather than to mark distinct chronological stages.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders tehomot ("the deeps," plural) as πόντῳ ("the sea," singular), while the Vulgate's "Abyssi" ("abysses," plural) matches the Hebrew plural more closely. The Hebrew even ("a stone," singular) is preserved as singular in the LXX (λίθος) and Vulgate (lapis) and in the BSB ("a stone"), whereas the SBLIBRE translation renders it as plural ("piedras," "stones").