Exodus 19:6

Summary

The verse declares what Israel will become for God: mamlekhet kohanim ("a kingdom of priests", H4467/H3548) and goy qadosh ("a holy nation", H1471A/H6918G). It closes with an instruction marking these as the exact words Moses must relay to the Israelites.

Key words

• 'atem ("you", H0859D) — independent personal pronoun placed before the verb, giving emphasis to the addressee ("you," as opposed to other nations).
• tihyu ("you will be", H1961) — qal imperfect, 2nd person masculine plural, expressing a future or ongoing state rather than a single completed act.
• mamlekhet ("kingdom of", H4467) — feminine singular noun in construct state, meaning it must be bound to the following noun ("kingdom of priests") rather than standing alone as "kingdom."
• kohanim ("priests", H3548) — masculine plural noun, the noun governed by the construct mamlekhet.
• goy qadosh ("a holy nation", H1471A + H6918G) — noun plus adjective in simple apposition (no construct chain), each word independent.

What the text says

The clause opens with the conjunction ve ("and", H9002) followed immediately by the emphatic pronoun 'atem ("you") before the verb tihyu ("you will be"). This word order — pronoun before verb — is marked in Hebrew, since verbal person is already indicated by the verb’s conjugation; placing 'atem explicitly draws attention to the addressee. The verb tihyu is qal imperfect, a form used for future or continuing states, so the sentence describes an ongoing condition ("you will be / you are to be") rather than a single event.

The predicate consists of two parts joined by ve ("and"): mamlekhet kohanim and goy qadosh. The first is a construct chain — mamlekhet ("kingdom of", H4467) cannot stand alone grammatically; it requires kohanim ("priests", H3548) to complete its meaning, producing "a kingdom of priests." The second phrase, goy qadosh, is not a construct chain but a noun-adjective pair: goy ("nation", H1471A) is simply modified by qadosh ("holy", H6918G) in ordinary agreement (masculine singular noun with masculine singular adjective).

The final part of the verse shifts to a new sentence introduced by the demonstrative 'eleh ("these", H0428) plus the article-bearing noun ha-devarim ("the words", H1697G), followed by the relative 'asher ("which", H0834A) and the verb tedabber ("you will speak", H1696G), a piel imperfect denoting the intensive or communicative act of speaking. This closes the divine speech by identifying it as the specific content Moses must deliver 'el bene Yisra'el ("to the people of Israel", H1121G/H3478).

Differences between versions

The LXX renders mamlekhet kohanim as basileion hierateuma ("royal priesthood"), shifting from the Hebrew construct "kingdom of priests" to an adjective-noun phrase. The Vulgate follows closer to the Hebrew structure with regnum sacerdotale ("priestly kingdom"), using an adjective rather than a construct noun chain, which is a different grammatical strategy from both the Hebrew and the LXX.