Exodus 18:13

וַיְהִי מִֽמָּחֳרָת וַיֵּשֶׁב מֹשֶׁה לִשְׁפֹּט אֶת־הָעָם וַיַּעֲמֹד הָעָם עַל־מֹשֶׁה מִן־הַבֹּקֶר עַד־הָעָֽרֶב׃

✦ Hebrew interlinear

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✦ The same verse in five languages

Hebrew

וַיְהִי֙ מִֽמָּחֳרָ֔ת וַיֵּ֥שֶׁב מֹשֶׁ֖ה לִשְׁפֹּ֣ט אֶת־הָעָ֑ם וַיַּעֲמֹ֤ד הָעָם֙ עַל־מֹשֶׁ֔ה מִן־הַבֹּ֖קֶר עַד־הָעָֽרֶב׃

Greek (Septuagint)

ἐγένετο μετὰ τὴν ἐπαύριον συνεκάθισεν μυσῆς κρίνειν τὸν λαόν· παρειστήκει δὲ πᾶς ὁ λαὸς Mcovo^fl ἀπὸ πρωίθεν ἕως δείλης.

Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0

Latin (Vulgate)

Altera autem die sedit Moyses ut judicaret populum, qui assistebat Moysi a mane usque ad vesperam.

Spanish

Al día siguiente, Moisés se sentó a resolver los problemas de la gente, y el pueblo estuvo de pie a su alrededor desde la mañana hasta la noche.

Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)

Y aconteció que otro día se sentó Moisés á juzgar al pueblo; y el pueblo estuvo delante de Moisés desde la mañana hasta la tarde.

English

The next day Moses took his seat to judge the people, and they stood around him from morning until evening.

✦ What the text says

Summary

Exodus 18:13 narrates that on the day after (an unspecified previous event), Moses sat down to judge the people, and the people stood before him from morning until evening. The verse frames a full day of judicial activity using two narrative verbs and a temporal span.

Key words

va-yehi ("it was", H1961) — narrative vav + qal verb, the standard formula opening a new narrative unit ("and it happened that...").
mimochorat ("from the next day", H4283) — feminine singular noun with prefixed min, marking the temporal setting relative to a prior day.
lishpot ("to judge", H8199) — qal infinitive with prefixed li, expressing purpose ("in order to judge/to do judging").
vaya'amod ("it stood", H5975G) — qal narrative verb, third masculine singular, describing the people's posture/action as ongoing during the judging.
'al ("at", H5921A) — preposition governing "Moses," indicating the people's position relative to him, here rendered as "at/upon/beside" in the base gloss.

What the text says

The verse opens with the classic narrative marker va-yehi ("it was") followed by the temporal phrase mimochorat ("from the next day"), setting the scene as a subsequent day to whatever precedes in the narrative. The main clause uses va-yeshev ("and he sat", H3427), a narrative qal verb, to state that Moses took a seated position — the customary posture for judicial activity in the passage. The purpose of this sitting is given by the infinitive lishpot ("to judge", H8199), governing the direct object marked by 'et (H0853) plus ha'am ("the people", H5971A).

The second clause shifts subject to ha'am ("the people") with the narrative verb vaya'amod ("it stood", H5975G), followed by the preposition 'al ("at", H5921A) plus "Moses." The base Hebrew gloss for 'al is simply "at," without specifying "around" or "in front of." The temporal frame min-haboker 'ad-ha'arev ("from the morning until the evening") closes the verse, using the paired prepositions min (H4480A) and 'ad (H5704) to mark a complete daytime span.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew 'al-Moshe ("at Moses") is rendered in the LXX as παρειστήκει ("stood beside/attended"), in the Vulgate as assistebat Moysi ("was standing by Moses"), and in the BSB/SBLIBRE English/Spanish translations as "stood around him" / "de pie a su alrededor" — adding a spatial nuance ("around") not present in the Hebrew preposition 'al, which the word-by-word data glosses only as "at."

This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.