Exodus 18:26

Summary

The verse describes the ongoing judicial practice established for the appointed leaders: they judged the people continuously, brought difficult matters to Moses, and decided minor matters themselves. It closes the narrative sequence describing the division of judicial labor introduced earlier in the chapter.

Key words

• sha.fe.Tu ("they judged", H8199) — qal sequential perfect, marking this as a continuing consequence in the narrative chain rather than a new isolated event.
• ha.Davar ("the matter", H1697L) — masculine singular noun, repeated twice (lines 11 and 21) to structure the contrast between two categories of cases.
• ka.Sheh ("difficult", H7186) — masculine singular adjective modifying davar, designating the class of cases reserved for Moses.
• ye.vi.'un ("they brought", H0935P) — hiphil (causative) imperfect with paragogic nun, the causative stem indicating they "caused to come" the matter to Moses; the paragogic nun adds emphasis to the verb form.
• yish.pu.Tu... Hem ("they judged... they", H8199 + H1992) — qal imperfect reinforced by the independent pronoun Hem ("they"), placing emphasis on the subject who handles the small matters, contrasting with Moses who handles the difficult ones.

What the text says

The verse is built as a chain introduced by the narrative ve- on sha.fe.Tu, continuing the account of the previous verses with a sequential perfect verb form. This first clause establishes the general practice: judgment of "the people" (ha.'Am, H5971A) "at every time" (be.khol-'Et, H6256), a temporal expression built from the construct khol ("every") plus 'Et ("time"), indicating continuous or habitual action rather than a single occurrence.

The second half of the verse divides judicial matters into two categories, each introduced by et-ha-davar ("the matter"), a repeated formula that creates a structural parallel: "the matter, the difficult one" versus "and every matter, the small one." The adjectives ka.Sheh ("difficult", H7186) and ka.Ton ("small", H6996B) mark the contrast in case-type. The verb for the difficult cases, ye.vi.'un (H0935P), is in the hiphil stem — a causative form meaning literally "they caused [the matter] to come" — with a paragogic nun ending that adds emphatic weight to the action. By contrast, the small matters use the qal (non-causative) form yish.pu.Tu (H8199), the same root used at the start of the verse for the general judging activity, now reinforced by the independent pronoun Hem ("they", H1992) placed after the verb — a construction that grammatically foregrounds the subject, stressing that these officials themselves, not Moses, resolved the minor matters.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders ka.Ton ("small", H6996B) with the Greek adjective for "light" (ἐλαφρόν), a synonym-level rendering of the same contrast rather than a divergence in meaning. The Vulgate similarly uses faciliora ("easier") for the small matters and gravius ("weightier") for the difficult ones, expressing the same structural contrast between the two categories of davar found in the Hebrew, though with different adjectival choices than "difficult" and "small."