Exodus 17:4

Summary

Moses cries out to Yehovah, asking what he should do with "this people," warning that in just a little while they will stone him. The verse reports both his complaint and its urgent, almost desperate tone through the verb sequence.

Key words

• yitz'aq ("he cried out", H6817) — qal narrative verb; marks the main storyline action, a loud outcry rather than ordinary speech.
• mah ("what?", H4100) — interrogative pronoun opening Moses' direct question to Yehovah.
• 'e'eseh ("I will do", H6213A) — qal imperfect, first person; expresses an action not yet completed, here a request for guidance about future action.
• 'od me'at ("yet a little", H5750 + H4592) — adverbial phrase (a numeral plus a noun) indicating a short remaining span of time before the threatened event.
• sekaluni ("they will stone me", H5619 + H9030) — qal verb with vav-sequential perfect form, attached to a first-person pronominal suffix; the sequential perfect continues the narrative logic begun by 'od me'at, presenting the stoning as the resulting consequence.

What the text says

The verse opens with the narrative va-yitz'aq, joining this scene to the preceding narrative flow with the vav prefix. Moses' action is directed 'el-Yehovah ("to Yehovah," H0413 + H3068G), followed by le'mor ("saying", H0559), the infinitive construct that regularly introduces direct speech in Biblical Hebrew narrative.

The quoted speech itself is a question: mah 'e'eseh la'am hazzeh — "What will I do to/with this people?" The imperfect verb 'e'eseh leaves the action open, suited to a request for direction rather than a statement of settled fact. The demonstrative hazzeh ("this," H2088) attached to ha'am ("the people," H5971A with article H9009) points at the group causing trouble, without further qualification in the Hebrew itself.

The final clause, 'od me'at u-sekaluni, uses a common Biblical Hebrew construction: a time phrase ("yet a little") followed by a vav-sequential perfect verb that expresses what will happen after that short interval. The suffix -ni ("me," H9030) attaches the stoning directly to Moses as its object.

Differences between versions

The Vulgate explicitly names the addressee, "ad Dominum" ("to the Lord"), matching the Hebrew 'el-Yehovah, while the LXX text given here reads πρὸς ("to") without an explicit object, leaving the addressee implicit in this rendering. Additionally, the Hebrew and LXX both give a plural subject for the stoning ("they will stone me," sekaluni / καταλιθοβολήσουσίν), whereas the Vulgate uses a singular verb, "lapidabit me" ("he will stone me").