Exodus 16:24

Summary

The verse reports the outcome of storing the manna overnight before the Sabbath: the Israelites left it as Moses had commanded, and unlike on other days, it neither rotted nor produced maggots by morning.

Key words

• yannichu ("they left/set aside", H5117) — hiphil causative, narrative form ("and then they caused [it] to remain"), indicating a deliberate act of setting the food aside rather than simply leaving it unattended.
• tzivvah ("he had commanded", H6680) — piel perfect, marking a completed, intensified act of command; the perfect aspect situates this instruction as prior to the events narrated here.
• hiv'ish ("it stank", H0887) — hiphil perfect of a root meaning "to become foul"; the causative stem frames the spoiling as something the substance "produced" rather than simply "was."
• rimmah ("a maggot", H7415) — feminine singular noun, used generically ("maggot" as a category) rather than as a count of individual worms.
• hayetah ("it was", H1961) — qal perfect, feminine, agreeing with rimmah; a simple statement of absence ("no maggot was in it").

What the text says

The verse divides into two parts joined by a narrative sequence. The first clause (elements 1–11) states that the people "left it" (yannichu oto, H5117 + H0853/H9033) "until the morning" ('ad ha-boqer, H5704/H1242), and adds a comparative clause introduced by ka'asher ("just as", H9004/H0834D) tying the action to what "Moses had commanded" (tzivvah Mosheh, H6680/H4872). The piel perfect tzivvah presents the command as an earlier, completed event relative to the storage action, which is why it is often rendered in English with a pluperfect ("had commanded").

The second part (elements 12–20) reports the result using two negated perfect verbs: lo hiv'ish ("it did not stink", H3808/H0887) and rimmah lo hayetah bo ("a maggot was not in it", H7415/H3808/H1961/H9003/H9033). Both negations use lo (H3808) with a qal or hiphil perfect, framing the non-spoilage as a completed, verified fact rather than an ongoing state. The pronominal suffix -o ("it/his", H9033) appears twice (in oto and bo), consistently referring back to the manna as a singular collective substance, not as individual portions.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the object of Moses' command with a plural pronoun (αὐτοῖς, "to them"), where the Hebrew leaves the recipients of tzivvah ("he commanded", H6680) unstated. The LXX also shifts to plural pronouns in the final clause (ἐν αὐτοῖς, "in them") where the Hebrew bo (H9033) is singular, suggesting the LXX conceives of the manna as multiple portions rather than as the singular substance implied by the Hebrew suffix. The Vulgate follows the Hebrew's structure more closely, using singular "in eo" ("in it") for bo.