Exodus 19:4
אַתֶּם רְאִיתֶם אֲשֶׁר עָשִׂיתִי לְמִצְרָיִם וָאֶשָּׂא אֶתְכֶם עַל־כַּנְפֵי נְשָׁרִים וָאָבִא אֶתְכֶם אֵלָֽי׃
✦ Hebrew interlinear
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✦ The same verse in five languages
אַתֶּ֣ם רְאִיתֶ֔ם אֲשֶׁ֥ר עָשִׂ֖יתִי לְמִצְרָ֑יִם וָאֶשָּׂ֤א אֶתְכֶם֙ עַל־כַּנְפֵ֣י נְשָׁרִ֔ים וָאָבִ֥א אֶתְכֶ֖ם אֵלָֽי׃
Αὐτοὶ ἑωράκατέ ὅσα πεποίηκα τοῖς Αἰγυπτίοις, καὶ ἀνέλαβον ὑμᾶς ὡσεὶ ἐπὶ πτερύγων ἀετῶν, καὶ προσηγαγόμην ὑμᾶς πρὸς ἐμαυτόν.
Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0
Latin (Vulgate)
Vos ipsi vidistis quæ fecerim Ægyptiis, quomodo portaverim vos super alas aquilarum, et assumpserim mihi.
‘Ustedes mismos vieron lo que les hice a los egipcios, y cómo los llevé a ustedes sobre alas de águila y los traje hacia mí.
Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)
Vosotros visteis lo que hice á los Egipcios, y cómo os tomé sobre alas de águilas, y os he traído á mí.
‘ You have seen for yourselves what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles ’ wings and brought you to Myself.
✦ What the text says
Summary
Exodus 19:4 presents God addressing the people directly, reminding them that they themselves witnessed what was done to Egypt, and describing in two sequential images how they were carried on eagles' wings and brought to himself.
Key words
- 'a.Tem ("you", H0859D) — independent personal pronoun placed before the verb, giving emphasis to the subject ("you yourselves").
- re.'i.Tem ("you have seen", H7200G) — qal perfect, second person plural, marking a completed action of direct observation.
- 'e.Sa' ("I carried", H5375H) — qal verb in narrative form (vav-consecutive), continuing the sequence of past action from the speaker's perspective.
- kan.Fei ("wings of", H3671) — feminine dual construct noun, indicating a pair of wings belonging to something else in the phrase, here ne.sha.Rim ("eagles", H5404).
- 'a.Vi' ("I brought", H0935P) — hiphil (causative) narrative verb, indicating the subject caused the object to arrive somewhere.
What the text says
The verse opens with the independent pronoun 'a.Tem ("you", H0859D) placed before its verb re.'i.Tem ("you have seen", H7200G). Since Biblical Hebrew verbs already encode person and number, an explicit pronoun in this position adds emphasis to the subject — the text stresses that the addressees themselves were the witnesses, not merely reporting secondhand.
The relative clause introduced by 'a.Sher ("which", H0834A) attaches to 'a.Si.ti ("I did", H6213A), a first-person qal perfect describing a finished action directed le- ("to", H9005) Mitz.Ra.yim ("Egypt", H4714G).
The following two clauses are joined by the narrative vav (H9001), a grammatical form that chains actions in sequence ("and then... and then..."). First 'e.Sa' ("I carried", H5375H), a qal form, describes lifting the people 'al-kan.Fei ne.sha.Rim ("on wings of eagles", H5921A + H3671 + H5404) — the construct chain kan.Fei + ne.sha.Rim literally binds "wings" to "eagles" as a single possessive unit. Second, 'a.Vi' ("I brought", H0935P) uses the hiphil stem, a causative form indicating the subject actively caused the object (marked by 'et- + suffix -khem, "you", H0853+H9036) to arrive at a destination — here 'e.La-i ("to myself", H0413+H9030), formed by the preposition plus first-person suffix.
Differences between versions
The LXX renders kan.Fei nesharim ("wings of eagles") with the comparative particle ὡσεὶ ("as if/like"), producing "as if on eagles' wings," whereas the Hebrew construct phrase states the image directly without a comparative marker. The Vulgate's portaverim and assumpserim use subjunctive forms reflecting the relative clause structure carried over from quae fecerim, differing grammatically from the Hebrew's independent narrative (vav-consecutive) verbs 'e.Sa' and 'a.Vi'.
This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.