Exodus 18:17

Summary

Exodus 18:17 reports that Moses' father-in-law spoke to him, telling him that what he was doing was "not good." The verse consists of a narrative introduction followed by direct speech containing a simple evaluative judgment.

Key words

• va-yomer ("and he said", H9001+H0559) — narrative vav prefixed to the qal verb "to say," marking sequential action in the story ("and then he said").
• choten ("father-in-law of", H2859A) — qal participle, masculine singular, in construct state, linking directly to Mosheh ("Moses," H4872) to form "father-in-law of Moses."
• lo-tov ("not good", H3808+H2896A) — negation particle combined with a masculine singular adjective, forming a compact predicate of judgment.
• ha-davar ("the thing", H9009+H1697I) — noun with definite article, functioning as the subject of the adjectival clause "the thing is not good."
• asher atah oseh ("which you are doing", H0834A+H0859A+H6213A) — relative particle introducing a clause with an independent pronoun ("you") plus a qal participle ("doing"), a construction that in Biblical Hebrew often expresses ongoing or habitual action rather than a single completed act.

What the text says

The verse divides into two parts: a narrative frame and reported speech. The frame uses va-yomer ("and he said," H0559) with the narrative vav, the standard mechanism for advancing action in Biblical Hebrew narrative. The subject is identified through a construct chain, choten Mosheh ("father-in-law of Moses," H2859A + H4872), where the participle choten functions as a noun ("the one who is father-in-law") bound tightly to the proper name that follows.

The direct speech itself is a nominal clause without a copula, typical of Hebrew: lo-tov ha-davar — literally "not-good the-thing." The adjective tov ("good," H2896A) is negated by lo ("not," H3808) and precedes its subject ha-davar ("the thing," H1697I), which carries the definite article. This word order (predicate before subject) is common in Hebrew nominal sentences of evaluation.

The relative clause asher atah oseh ("which you are doing," H0834A + H0859A + H6213A) specifies which "thing" is being judged. The presence of the independent pronoun atah ("you," H0859A) alongside the participle oseh ("doing," H6213A) emphasizes the subject explicitly, even though Hebrew verb participles do not require a separate pronoun for person; grammatically this pairing (pronoun + participle) is characteristic of expressing an action in progress or continuous.

Differences between versions

The LXX (Swete) text provided for this verse stops after "he said... to him" (eipen de ho gambros Mōusē pros auton), not including the content of the speech that appears in the Hebrew, Vulgate, and modern translations. The Vulgate (Non bonam, inquit, rem facis) and modern versions (RV1909, BSB, SBLIBRE) all render the judgment clause, corresponding to the Hebrew lo-tov ha-davar asher atah oseh, though the LXX excerpt given here does not include this portion of the verse.