Exodus 19:2

Summary

Exodus 19:2 narrates the final stage of Israel's journey to Sinai: departure from Rephidim, arrival at the wilderness of Sinai, and the encampment there, with Israel positioned facing the mountain. The verse is built as a chain of four consecutive narrative verbs describing successive actions.

Key words

• yis'u ("they set out", H5265) — qal narrative form, plural, opening the verse's action chain.
• midbar ("wilderness of", H4057B) — construct form linking to Sinai, meaning "the wilderness belonging to/named Sinai."
• vayyachanu ("they encamped", H2583) — plural narrative verb, subject is the people generally.
• vayyichan ("it encamped", H2583) — same root as above but singular, now with Yisra'el as subject.
• neged ("before", H5048) — construct form indicating spatial orientation, "in front of/opposite."

What the text says

The verse consists of four verbs joined by the narrative vav (H9001), each advancing the story: yis'u ("they set out"), yavo'u ("they came"), vayyachanu ("they encamped"), and vayyichan ("it encamped"). This chain moves the reader from departure to final positioning without interruption.

A notable grammatical feature is the shift between the third and fourth verbs, both from the root chanah ("to encamp", H2583). The third occurrence, vayyachanu, is plural, describing the people encamping "in the wilderness" (bamidbar, H4057B with article). The fourth occurrence, vayyichan, is singular, though its subject is Yisra'el (H3478) — a collective noun that Hebrew grammar can treat as singular. The text thus states the same action twice with two different grammatical numbers, first as a group action, then as a singular-collective action tied specifically to the name "Israel" and located "before the mountain" (neged ha-har).

Differences between versions

The Hebrew presents two separate clauses for the encampment: vayyachanu bamidbar ("they encamped in the wilderness") and vayyichan sham Yisra'el ("Israel encamped there"). The Vulgate preserves this two-part structure with castrametati sunt in eodem loco ("they encamped in the same place") followed by ibique Israël fixit tentoria ("and there Israel pitched tents"). The Greek text provided shows what appears to be a single encampment clause, παρενέβαλεν ἐκεῖ Ἰσραὴλ ("Israel encamped there"), without a distinct rendering of the prior plural clause found in the Hebrew and Vulgate — the LXX text as given here does not clearly preserve the double verbal structure present in the Hebrew.