Exodus 19:11

Summary

The verse instructs that the people are to be nekhonim ("prepared", H3559A) for the third day, giving the reason (ki, "for", H3588A) that Yehovah will descend upon Mount Sinai on that day, visible to the entire people. The sentence sets a temporal condition and states a divine action tied to it.

Key words

• ne.kho.Nim ("prepared", H3559A) — niphal participle, masculine plural, describing a state resulting from an action done to the subject (the people are made ready, rather than actively preparing themselves).
• ki ("for", H3588A) — subordinating particle introducing the reason/cause for the preceding command; it links the state of readiness to the coming event.
• ye.Red ("he will come down", H3381) — qal imperfect, third person masculine singular, expressing an action not yet completed, here future in reference.
• 'ei.Nei ("eyes of", H5869H) — feminine dual construct noun, forming the idiom le'einei ("to/before the eyes of"), used to express visibility or presence before witnesses.
• har ("mountain of", H2022G) — masculine singular construct noun, linking the proper name Sinai (H5514G) to form the place designation "Mountain of Sinai."

What the text says

The verse opens with the narrative ve ("and", H9001) attached to ha.Yu ("they will be", H1961), a qal sequential perfect continuing the narrative sequence begun earlier in the passage. The predicate that follows, nekhonim, is a niphal participle — a passive/reflexive verbal form — meaning the people are the ones being made ready, without specifying by whom. This construction differs from an active verb of self-preparation; the grammatical voice leaves open whether the readiness is self-produced or externally caused.

The clause introduced by ki explains why this readiness is required: on "the day, the third" (repeated exactly as in the first clause — la.yom ha.shelishi and ba.yom ha.shelishi), Yehovah yered ("will come down", H3381), a qal imperfect verb marking incomplete or future aspect. The repetition of the ordinal shelishi ("third", H7992) in both clauses creates a structural echo binding command and reason together.

The phrase le'einei khol ha'am uses the construct chain 'einei... khol... ha'am — literally "to the eyes of all the people" — to indicate that the described event occurs in the sight of the entire community, without specifying manner beyond visibility. The final phrase 'al har Sinai ("on the mountain of Sinai") specifies location using a construct noun (har) governing the proper name Sinai.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders le'einei ("to the eyes of", H5869H) as ἐναντίον ("before/in the presence of"), shifting the idiom from "eyes" to a more general term of presence. The Vulgate similarly uses coram ("in the presence of"), also abstracting away from the literal "eyes" image found in the Hebrew. The SBLIBRE Spanish rendering paraphrases Yehovah in first person ("yo, Yehová, bajaré"), a stylistic shift not reflected in the third-person form yered ("he will come down", H3381) of the Hebrew text.