Exodus 16:26

Summary

The verse instructs that the manna is to be gathered for six days, but states that on the seventh day — described as shabbat — none will be present. The Hebrew leaves the subject of "will not be" grammatically implicit, relying on the preceding context (the manna) for clarity.

Key words

• she.shet ("six", H8337) — construct-state numeral, syntactically bound to yamim, forming "six of days" rather than a free-standing adjective.
• til.ke.Tu.hu ("you will gather it", H3950 + suffix) — qal imperfect, 2nd person masculine plural, with a 3rd person masculine singular object suffix (hu) referring back to the manna discussed earlier in the chapter, though not named in this verse itself.
• sha.Bat ("a sabbath", H7676) — feminine singular noun appearing without the definite article, unlike ha.she.vi'i ("the seventh") which carries the article (H9009). This produces an asyndetic predicate: "the seventh day [is] a sabbath," rather than "the Sabbath."
• yih.yeh ("it will be", H1961) — qal imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular. Its subject is not overtly stated in this clause; grammatically it agrees with a masculine antecedent (consistent with the manna, masculine in Hebrew), not with yom ("day") or shabbat, both of which could theoretically host the verb but do not match its gender pattern used elsewhere for the manna.
• bo ("in it", H9033 + preposition) — 3rd person masculine singular suffix. Its referent is not lexically fixed in the Hebrew: it could point to "the day" or, as suggested by the masculine gender, to the manna.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence divides into two balanced clauses. The first, shéshet yamim tilqetuhu ("six days you will gather it"), uses a construct numeral phrase followed by an imperfect verb with an object suffix, compactly expressing repeated future action across a defined period. The second clause, uvayom hashevi'i shabbat lo yihyeh-bo ("and on the seventh day, a sabbath, it will not be in it"), places shabbat as an anarthrous noun in apposition to "the seventh day," describing that day's character rather than naming an already-established institution within this clause. The final verb yihyeh lacks a stated subject, so the "it" that will not be present must be inferred from the wider narrative (the manna), not from the immediate clause structure.

Differences between versions

The LXX adds a causal conjunction, ὅτι ("because"), not present in the Hebrew, and its pronoun αὐτῇ (feminine) grammatically points to ἡμέρᾳ ("day"), whereas the Hebrew suffix bo is masculine. The Vulgate renders shabbat as "sabbatum...Domini" ("sabbath of the Lord"), inserting "Domini," a phrase with no corresponding word in the Hebrew text. The Vulgate also uses "invenietur" ("will be found") instead of a simple "to be," diverging from the Hebrew's plain yihyeh ("will be").