Exodus 19:23

Summary

Moses responds to Yehovah that the people cannot go up Mount Sinai, reminding him that he himself had already commanded that the mountain be bounded off and consecrated. The verse is Moses' reply within a dialogue, referring back to an earlier divine instruction.

Key words

• yuKhal ("it is able", H3201) — qal imperfect, negated by lo' ("not", H3808), expressing an ongoing incapacity: "the people cannot/is not able."
• ha'eDotah ("you warned", H5749B) — hiphil perfect, second person, a causative form implying Moses places emphasis on Yehovah's own prior act of solemnly warning ("causing to testify/warn").
• hagBel ("set a boundary for", H1379) — hiphil imperative, the quoted command Yehovah had given, causative in form ("cause a boundary to be made").
• kidashT-o ("you will consecrate it", H6942G) — piel sequential perfect with pronominal suffix -o ("it", H9033), continuing the imperative sequence begun with hagBel, referring to the mountain.
• ki ("for/that", H3588A) — subordinating particle introducing Moses' justification clause for his statement about the people.

What the text says

The verse opens with the narrative formula va-yomer ("and he said", H0559) followed by the subject Mosheh ("Moses", H4872) and the addressee marked by 'el ("to", H0413) plus Yehovah (H3068G). The content of Moses' speech begins with a negated statement: lo' yukhal ha'am la'alot 'el har Sinai — "the people is not able to go up to the mountain of Sinai." Here ha'am ("the people", H5971A) is the subject of the qal imperfect yukhal, and la'alot ("to go up", H5927G) is an infinitive construct expressing purpose or complement to the verb of ability, governed by the preposition la- ("to").

Moses then gives the reason for this statement with the particle ki ("for", H3588A), introducing a clause built on the emphatic pronoun 'attah ("you", H0859A) followed by the hiphil perfect ha'edotah ("you warned", H5749B) with the pronominal suffix banu ("in us/us", H9035) attached via the preposition ba-. This construction stresses that it was Yehovah himself, in the second person, who had testified or warned "against/among us." The quoted content of that warning follows after the infinitive le'mor ("saying", H0559): two imperatives, hagbel ("set a boundary for", H1379) governing the object marker 'et ("[object marker]", H0853) plus ha-har ("the mountain", H2022G), followed by the sequential perfect ve-qidashto ("and you will consecrate it", H6942G) with the third-person suffix -o referring back to ha-har. The piel stem of qidashto denotes an intensive or factitive action directed at the mountain, syntactically continuing the imperative force of hagbel through the vav-consecutive perfect construction.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders Yehovah (H3068G) as πρὸς τὸν θεόν ("to God") rather than a transliterated divine name, and the Vulgate uses ad Dominum ("to the Lord"). The Vulgate adds et jussisti ("and you commanded"), an element not present in the Hebrew clause built on ha'edotah ("you warned", H5749B) alone. The LXX renders ha'am ("the people", H5971A) with ὁ λαός and la'alot ("to go up", H5927G) with προσαναβῆναι, a compound verb emphasizing approach/ascent, while the Hebrew infinitive construct carries no such compounded nuance.