Exodus 18:14

Summary

Moses' father-in-law observes everything Moses does for the people and questions him with two interrogatives: what is this practice, and why does Moses sit alone while the entire people stands before him from morning until evening.

Key words

• va-yar ("and he saw", H7200G) — qal narrative verb form, marking the next event in the story sequence: seeing precedes speaking.
• choTen ("father-in-law of", H2859A) — qal participle in construct state, linking directly to Mosheh ("Moses", H4872) to identify the subject as "the father-in-law of Moses."
• 'oseh ("doing", H6213A) — qal participle, masculine singular, used three times in the verse (vv. 14b, 14c implied structure) to describe an ongoing, repeated action rather than a single completed act.
• madua' ("why?", H4069) — interrogative particle distinct from mah ("what?", H4100) used earlier in the verse; introduces a second, separate question about motive rather than content.
• nitzav ("standing", H5324) — niphal participle, masculine singular; the niphal stem here conveys a state of being positioned/stationed, describing the people's posture as a continuous condition "from boker ('morning', H1242) until 'erev ('evening', H6153)."

What the text says

The verse opens with two narrative verbs joined by the vav construction: va-yar ("and he saw") and later va-yomer ("and he said"), structuring the verse as observation followed by speech. The object of seeing is introduced by 'et (H0853, untranslated direct object marker) governing kol-'asher hu' 'oseh ("all that he was doing"), where the relative particle 'asher (H0834A) plus the participle 'oseh frames the action as habitual — "all that he customarily does" — rather than a single event.

The father-in-law's speech contains two distinct questions marked by different interrogative words. The first, mah-ha-davar ha-zeh ("what is this thing"), uses mah (H4100) with the demonstrative zeh (H2088) to ask about the nature/content of the practice. The second question shifts interrogatives to madua' (H4069), asking specifically about the reason ("why") behind Moses sitting le-vadekha ("alone", from bad, H0905H, construct + suffix "your"). The contrast is reinforced grammatically by the pronoun 'atah ("you", H0859A) appearing before both participles 'oseh and yoshev ("sitting", H3427), emphasizing the singular subject "you" against kol ha-'am ("all the people", H3605 + H5971A) as subject of nitzav ("standing"), a niphal participle indicating their fixed, prolonged posture. The temporal span is marked by the prepositional pair min-boker 'ad-'arev ("from morning until evening"), using min (H4480A) and 'ad (H5704) to bracket the entire duration.

Differences between versions

The LXX gives the father-in-law's proper name, Ἰοθὸρ (Jethro), where the Hebrew text at this point uses only the participle choten ("father-in-law of") without naming him explicitly. The Vulgate similarly avoids the name, rendering cognatus ejus ("his relative"). The LXX's ὅσα ποιεῖ ("as much as he does") and the Vulgate's quæ agebat ("which he was doing") both render the Hebrew participle 'oseh with verb forms in their own systems, without a direct equivalent to the Hebrew participial construction expressing ongoing action.