Exodus 16:14

Summary

The verse describes what happened after "the layer of dew" ascended: a thin, flake-like substance appeared covering the wilderness floor, compared in fineness to frost on the ground. The clause uses the "behold" construction to mark the sudden visual discovery.

Key words

• Ta.'al ("it went up", H5927G) — qal narrative verb; continues the story sequence ("and then it went up"), describing the dew's ascent/evaporation as the triggering event.
• shikhVat ("layer of", H7902) — feminine singular noun in construct state, linking to ha-Tal ("the dew", H2919); together they form "the layer of the dew" as the grammatical subject of the verb.
• hiNeh ("there!", H2009) — interjection marking a shift to immediate, visual perception; introduces what is seen once the dew-layer is gone.
• mechusPas ("flake-like", H2636) — pual (intensive passive) participle, masculine singular; describes the substance as having been made scale-like or flaked, without naming an agent.
• dak ("thin [stuff]", H1851) — adjective, repeated twice in the verse (positions 12 and 14), reinforcing the fineness/thinness of the substance through repetition.

What the text says

The sentence opens with a vav-consecutive verb, va-Ta'al, whose subject is shikhVat ha-Tal, "the layer of the dew." This construct phrase names the subject as a specific mass or layer, not simply "dew" generically. The verb's action (H5927G, "went up") describes this layer's departure — an ascent or dissipation — setting up the following clause.

After this, ve-hiNeh ("and behold") shifts the narrative into an immediate, perceptual mode: something is suddenly visible on "the surface of the wilderness" (peNei ha-midBar). The described substance is doubly qualified by the adjective dak ("thin"), appearing both before and after the participle mechusPas ("flake-like"). This repetition of dak around the participle emphasizes fineness as the substance's defining trait, described using a passive participial form that indicates the substance's flaked or scaled appearance without specifying who or what caused this shape. The final comparison, ka-keFor ("like frost", H3713B), gives an analogical measure of this fineness rather than a botanical or material identification.

Differences between versions

The LXX (Septuagint) does not render va-Ta'al shikhVat ha-Tal ("the layer of dew went up") — it moves directly to "and behold, upon the face of the wilderness," omitting the dew-ascending clause found in the Hebrew. The LXX also adds λευκόν ("white"), a descriptive term absent from the Hebrew text.

The Vulgate renders the opening clause as "cumque operuisset superficiem terrae" ("and when it had covered the surface of the earth"), which describes covering rather than the Hebrew's image of ascending or evaporating (Ta'al, H5927G). For mechusPas ("flake-like"), the Vulgate uses "quasi pilo tusum" ("as if beaten with a pestle"), a different image from the Hebrew's flake/scale description.