Exodus 18:4

Summary

The verse gives the name and meaning of Moses' second son, Eliezer, explaining that the name reflects a statement about God's help. The clause explains that "the God of my father" acted as help and delivered the speaker from "the sword of Pharaoh."

Key words

• 'e.li.'E.zer ("Eliezer", H0461H) — proper name, built from the elements reflected in the following clause ("God" + "help"), though the text itself does not etymologize it explicitly.
• 'e.lo.Hei ("God of", H0430G) — masculine plural construct noun; grammatically plural but functioning as a singular referent when bound to "my father," a common construct pattern in Biblical Hebrew.
• be.'ez.R ("in my help" / "my help", H5828) — masculine singular construct noun with the preposition be ("in") and pronominal suffix "my" (H9020), forming the predicate "was my help."
• va.i.ya.tzi.Le.ni ("and he delivered me", H5337) — Hiphil (causative) verb with narrative vav (H9001) and 1st-person suffix "me" (H9030); the causative stem marks the subject as the one causing the deliverance to happen.
• Che.rev ("sword of", H2719) — feminine singular construct noun, bound to "Pharaoh" to form "the sword of Pharaoh."

What the text says

The verse opens with a naming formula: ve.Shem ha.'e.Chad 'e.li.'E.zer — "and the name of the one [was] Eliezer." The particle ki (H3588A) introduces the reason or content of the naming, functioning here as "for" or "because," linking the name to the statement that follows.

The core clause 'e.lo.Hei 'a.V-i be.'ez.R-i has no explicit verb; it is a nominal (verbless) clause joining "the God of my father" with the prepositional phrase "in my help," which functions predicatively as "was my help." This construction is typical of Biblical Hebrew, where a state or identity can be expressed without a copula "to be." The construct chain 'e.lo.Hei 'a.V-i ("God of my father") ties the divine designation to the personal, ancestral relationship rather than to a generic divine title alone.

The second half of the verse shifts to narrative sequence with the vav-consecutive form va.i.ya.tzi.Le.ni ("and he delivered me"), a Hiphil verb marking a completed, causative action — the subject (grammatically "he," referring back to "the God of my father") is the one who brought about the deliverance, contrasted with a simple Qal "he delivered" would imply. The phrase me.Che.rev par.'Oh ("from the sword of Pharaoh") uses a construct chain to specify whose sword — Pharaoh's — from which the deliverance occurred.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders me.Che.rev ("from the sword of," H2719) as ἐκ χειρὸς ("from the hand of"), differing from the Hebrew's specific mention of a "sword." The Vulgate follows the Hebrew more closely with de gladio ("from the sword"). The LXX also adds λέγων ("saying") to introduce the quoted speech explicitly, a framing element not present as a separate word in the Hebrew text, which relies on the particle ki alone to introduce the reported content.