Exodus 16:15

Summary

The Israelites see the substance on the ground and ask each other "man hu" — "what is it?" — because they do not recognize it. Moses answers that it is the bread that Yehovah has given them to eat.

Key words

• man ("what?", H4478B) — an interrogative pronoun; this is the specific word later echoed in the name "manna," distinct from the more common interrogative mah used later in the same episode (v.16).
• hu ("it/he", H1931) — a personal pronoun functioning as a copula ("it is"), used twice in the verse: once in the question (man hu) and once in Moses' answer (hu ha-lechem, "it [is] the bread").
• 'ish... 'achiv ("each... his brother", H0376I/H0251I) — a reciprocal idiom, "a man to his brother," expressing "one to another."
• yade'u ("they knew", H3045) — qal perfect, a completed state of not-knowing that explains the reason for the question introduced by ki ("for/because", H3588A).
• nathan ("he has given", H5414G) — qal perfect describing Yehovah's completed act of giving, modifying ha-lechem ("the bread") through the relative particle 'asher ("which", H0834A).

What the text says

The verse opens with two narrative-chain verbs (va-yir'u, "and they saw"; va-yo'meru, "and they said"), marking sequential action: seeing leads immediately to speech. The question itself, man hu, uses the pronoun hu as a linking copula rather than a full verb "to be," a common feature in Hebrew nominal/pronominal clauses. The reason clause ki lo yade'u mah hu ("for they did not know what it was") repeats the question structure but with the alternate interrogative mah instead of man, showing that the two forms are used as synonyms within the passage, though man is the less frequent choice here.

Moses' reply mirrors the question's grammar: hu ha-lechem places the pronoun hu before the noun with the definite article, structurally paralleling the earlier question and answering it directly — "it is the bread." The bread is further specified by a relative clause, 'asher nathan Yehovah lakhem le-'okhlah ("which Yehovah has given you for food"), where the final phrase le-'okhlah uses a preposition plus a feminine noun ("food") to indicate purpose.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew interrogative man hu is rendered by the LXX simply as "τί ἐστιν τοῦτο" ("what is this"), translating the sense without preserving the sound of man. The Vulgate instead transliterates the phrase as "Manhu" and then glosses it in Latin ("quod significat: Quid est hoc," "which means: what is this"), explicitly marking it as a foreign expression requiring translation — a treatment the Hebrew text and the LXX do not show in the same way.