Exodus 16:21
וַיִּלְקְטוּ אֹתוֹ בַּבֹּקֶר בַּבֹּקֶר אִישׁ כְּפִי אָכְלוֹ וְחַם הַשֶּׁמֶשׁ וְנָמָֽס׃
✦ Hebrew interlinear
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✦ The same verse in five languages
וַיִּלְקְט֤וּ אֹתוֹ֙ בַּבֹּ֣קֶר בַּבֹּ֔קֶר אִ֖ישׁ כְּפִ֣י אָכְל֑וֹ וְחַ֥ם הַשֶּׁ֖מֶשׁ וְנָמָֽס׃
καὶ συνέλεξαν αὐτὸ πρωί· ἡνίκα δὲ διεθέρμαινεν ὁ ἥλιος, ἐτήκετο.
Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0
Latin (Vulgate)
Colligebant autem mane singuli, quantum sufficere poterat ad vescendum: cumque incaluisset sol, liquefiebat.
Así que todas las mañanas cada uno recogía lo que iba a comer, porque en cuanto el sol calentaba, aquello se derretía.
Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)
Y recogíanlo cada mañana, cada uno según lo que había de comer: y luego que el sol calentaba, derretíase.
Every morning each one gathered as much as was needed, and when the sun grew hot, it melted away. The Sabbath Observed (Genesis 2:1–3; Hebrews 4:1–11)
✦ What the text says
Summary
Exodus 16:21 describes the daily gathering of the substance (manna) each morning, with each person collecting according to their consumption needs, and notes that it would melt when the sun grew hot.
Key words
- va-yil.ke.tu ("and they gathered", H3950) — qal narrative verb, third person masculine plural, advancing the story sequence.
- Bo.ker ("morning", H1242) — masculine singular noun, repeated twice (ba.Bo.ker ba.Bo.ker) to express distributive repetition ("morning by morning").
- 'ish ("everyone", H0376I) — masculine singular noun used distributively, indicating each individual person within the collective group.
- ke.Fi 'a.khe.lo ("according to the mouth of his food", H9004+H6310K+H0400) — construct chain literally meaning "according to the mouth of his eating," an idiom for personal consumption capacity.
- na.Mas ("it melted", H4549) — niphal (passive) sequential perfect, describing the substance undergoing melting rather than an agent performing an action.
What the text says
The verse opens with the narrative vav on va-yil.ke.tu ("and they gathered"), continuing the ongoing storyline of daily manna collection. The phrase ba.Bo.ker ba.Bo.ker ("in the morning, in the morning") repeats the noun Bo.ker (H1242) twice without a conjunction between the repetitions — a Hebrew construction that conveys distributive or habitual repetition, rendered in English as "every morning" or "morning by morning."
The subject 'ish (H0376I), "everyone" or "each man," is grammatically singular but functions distributively across the group, indicating that the action applies individually to each person rather than collectively. The following construct phrase ke.Fi 'a.khe.lo combines Fi ("mouth of," H6310K) and 'a.khe.lo ("his food/eating," H0400 with suffix H9023) into an idiom meaning "according to what he could eat" or "according to his consumption."
The final clause uses two sequential perfect verbs, Cham ("it was warm," H2552) and na.Mas ("it melted," H4549), continuing the narrative sequence begun by the vav-consecutive pattern. The verb na.Mas is in the niphal stem, marking the substance as the entity undergoing the melting process rather than naming an external agent causing it.
Differences between versions
The LXX renders the Hebrew's doubled Bo.ker Bo.ker ("morning, morning") with a single πρωί ("morning"), not reproducing the distributive repetition present in the Hebrew construction. The Vulgate's mane singuli ("each one in the morning") preserves the distributive sense of 'ish but likewise does not double the term for "morning" as the Hebrew text does.
This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.