Exodus 18:10

Summary

Jethro pronounces a blessing over Yehovah, praising him for delivering Moses and the Israelites from the power of Egypt and Pharaoh. The verse repeats the theme of deliverance twice, using two parallel relative clauses built on the same verb, shifting from addressing "you" (Moses and family) to speaking of "the people" as a whole.

Key words

• baruch ("[be] blessed", H1288) — qal passive participle, masculine singular; a fixed liturgical form used to open blessing formulas, here predicated of Yehovah.
• 'asher ("who", H0834A) — relative particle used twice, introducing two parallel clauses that both elaborate on Yehovah's action of deliverance.
• hitsil ("he has delivered", H5337) — hiphil (causative) perfect, repeated in both clauses; the hiphil stem marks Yehovah as the causal agent who "caused deliverance," and the perfect aspect frames the action as completed.
• yad ("hand of", H3027W) — construct noun appearing three times (verses 11, 15, 24), an idiom for power or control, always governed by a preposition (min, "from," or mi-tachat, "from under").
• ha-'am ("the people", H5971A + H9009) — definite noun marking a shift from the second-person plural suffix -khem ("you," H9036) in the first clause to a third-person collective reference in the second.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence opens with the narrative va-yomer ("and he said," H0559) introducing Jethro's direct speech. The blessing formula barukh Yehovah stands independently, followed by two relative clauses both governed by 'asher... hitsil ("who delivered"). The first clause uses the object suffix -khem ("you," second-person plural) and the double phrase mi-yad mitsrayim / u-mi-yad par'oh ("from the hand of Egypt" and "from the hand of Pharaoh"), naming Egypt and Pharaoh as separate agents of oppression. The second clause repeats the verb hitsil but changes the object to et-ha'am ("the people") and uses a different construction, mi-tachat yad-mitsrayim ("from under the hand of Egypt"), which intensifies the image of subjugation compared to the plain mi-yad used earlier. The repetition of the hiphil perfect hitsil across both clauses creates a parallel structure that reinforces the completeness of the deliverance while varying the addressee (from "you" to "the people").

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the passage as a single clause (hoti exeilato autous ek cheiros Aigyption kai ek cheiros Pharao), using the third-person plural pronoun autous ("them") where the Hebrew text has the second-person suffix -khem ("you") in the first clause; the LXX text as given does not present a separate second hoti clause corresponding to the Hebrew's second 'asher... hitsil clause about "the people." The Vulgate preserves the Hebrew's two-clause structure, rendering the first object as "vos" ("you," matching -khem) and the second as "populum suum" ("his people," matching ha'am), keeping the shift in address visible in Latin as it is in Hebrew.