Exodus 18:22

Summary

Exodus 18:22 continues Jethro's advice to Moses about appointing judges: these men are to judge the people continually, referring only the "great matters" to Moses while handling "small matters" themselves. The verse ends with an instruction to Moses to lighten his own burden by sharing it.

Key words

• sha.fetu ("they will judge", H8199) — qal sequential perfect, continuing the chain of instructions begun earlier in the speech; functions almost as a command ("let them judge").
• yavi'u ("they will bring", H0935P) — hiphil (causative) imperfect: literally "cause to come," describing the ongoing procedure for major cases.
• yishpetu ("they will judge", H8199) — same root as word 2, but here in the qal imperfect, marking a shift in verbal form within the same sentence.
• da.var ("matter", H1697I) — appears twice, each time in a construct chain with kol ("every", H3605) and an adjective (gadol "great," katon "small"), producing "every great matter" / "every small matter."
• haqel ("lighten", H7043) — hiphil imperative, second person masculine singular, a direct command to Moses himself, distinct from the surrounding perfects and imperfects describing the judges' actions.

What the text says

The verse is built on a chain of verb forms that shift between the sequential perfect (sha.fetu, haYah, nas'u) and the imperfect (yavi'u, yishpetu). Both forms carry future/procedural sense in this context, but the alternation marks a structural pattern: the sequential perfects frame the general instruction ("they will judge... it will be... they will bear"), while the imperfects describe the two contrasting sub-procedures — bringing great matters to Moses, and judging small matters independently. The repetition of da.var ("matter") with the opposed adjectives gadol ("great") and katon ("small") creates a balanced structure, dividing legal cases into two categories by size/importance.

The verse then breaks this rhythm with haqel, a hiphil imperative aimed directly at Moses ("lighten [it] from upon yourself"), followed by nas'u, a sequential perfect describing the resulting shared burden ("they will bear [it] with you"). The imperative places the outcome — reduced burden — as something Moses himself is told to bring about through the delegation just described.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders "great matter" (da.var ha.gadol) as τὸ ῥῆμα τὸ ὑπέρογκον, "the exceedingly heavy/oppressive matter," a stronger term than the Hebrew "great." For "lighten" (haqel, a 2ms imperative addressed to Moses), the LXX uses κουφιοῦσιν, a third-person plural future ("they will lighten"), shifting the grammatical subject from Moses to the appointed judges. The Vulgate similarly uses an impersonal construction, "leviusque sit tibi" ("and let it be lighter for you"), rather than a direct imperative to Moses as in the Hebrew.