Exodus 19:12

Summary

Moses is commanded to set a boundary around the people surrounding the mountain, warning them not to go up on the mountain or touch its edge. Anyone who touches the mountain is to be put to death, a penalty emphasized by a doubled verbal construction in Hebrew.

Key words

• hig.bal.Ta ("you will set a boundary for", H1379) — hiphil (causative) sequential perfect, second person masculine singular; the causative stem indicates Moses is made to actively impose a limit, not merely observe one.
• hi.sha.me.Ru ("take heed", H8104J) — niphal imperative, masculine plural; the niphal stem (often reflexive/passive) frames the warning as something the people must do to/for themselves — "guard yourselves."
• ka.Tze.hu ("its edge", H7097A + H9023) — masculine singular noun in construct with a third-person pronominal suffix ("his/its"), specifying the boundary belongs to the mountain (har, H2022G) mentioned just before.
• no.Ge.a' ("[one who] touches", H5060) — qal participle, masculine singular; used substantively ("the one touching") to generalize the prohibition to any person in that state.
• Mot yu.Mat ("certainly to die" / "he will be put to death", H4191 + H4191) — an absolute infinitive (mot) paired with a hophal (causative passive) imperfect (yumat) of the same root, a construction that intensifies the verb's force.

What the text says

The verse opens with a sequential perfect verb, hig.bal.Ta, continuing a chain of instructions given to Moses (marked by the narrative ve-, H9001). The causative hiphil stem casts Moses as the agent who establishes the boundary "for the people" (ha-'Am, H5971A) "all around" (sa.Viv, H5439G) the mountain, introduced by the infinitive le.'mor ("saying", H0559) that opens direct speech.

Within that speech, the niphal imperative hi.sha.me.Ru directs the people to "take heed" for themselves (reinforced by la.khem, "to/for yourselves"). Two infinitives follow, a.Lot ("to go up", H5927G) and ne.Go.a' ("to touch", H5060), both governed structurally by the preceding imperative, specifying the two forbidden actions: ascending the mountain and touching its edge (ka.Tze.hu). The construct form with the third-person suffix ties this "edge" directly back to har ("mountain", H2022G).

The final clause generalizes the prohibition with the participle no.Ge.a' ("the one touching") preceded by kol ("every", H3605), producing "every one touching the mountain." The consequence is expressed through the paired construction mot yumat — an absolute infinitive of the root H4191 followed by a hophal imperfect of the same root. This doubling, characteristic of Biblical Hebrew legal and narrative style, intensifies the certainty of the outcome; the causative passive hophal stem indicates that death is imposed upon the offender rather than occurring incidentally.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders ka.Tze.hu ("its edge") with τι αὐτοῦ ("something of it"), a less specific phrase than the Hebrew construct noun referring to the mountain's edge. The Vulgate uses "fines illius" ("its boundaries/borders"), closer to the Hebrew sense of a defined limit. Where the Hebrew intensifies the death penalty through the doubled infinitive-plus-imperfect construction (mot yumat), both the LXX (θανάτῳ τελευτήσει, "he will die by death") and the Vulgate (morte morietur, "by death he will die") preserve a similar doubling pattern using cognate dative/ablative nouns rather than an infinitive form.