Exodus 19:8

Summary

Exodus 19:8 describes the people of Israel answering Moses collectively, promising to do everything Yehovah has spoken, after which Moses reports their words back to Yehovah. The verse contains three sequential narrative actions: the people answering, the people speaking their commitment, and Moses relaying that commitment.

Key words

• yachdav ("together", H3162B) — an adverb modifying how the people answered: as one unified body, not individually.
• kol asher dibber ("all that he has spoken", H3605 + H0834A + H1696G) — a relative clause using the piel perfect of dibber, marking Yehovah's speech as a completed, already-given communication.
• na'aseh ("we will do", H6213A) — qal imperfect, first person plural, expressing future or ongoing action; the people commit to action without yet having heard the specifics of what they are agreeing to.
• vayashev ("he brought back", H7725M) — hiphil (causative) narrative form of the root meaning "to return"; Moses causes the people's words to return to Yehovah, functioning as a report or relay.
• divrei ha'am ("words of the people", H1697G construct + H5971A) — a construct chain identifying exactly what Moses relays: not his own words, but those spoken by the people.

What the text says

The verse is built on three vayiqtol (narrative) verbs — vaya'anu ("and they answered"), vayomru ("and they said"), vayashev ("and he brought back") — which drive the story forward as a chain of sequential events. The first two verbs both describe the people's collective action, with yachdav ("together") emphasizing unanimity in the response.

The content of the people's speech is a short clause: kol asher dibber YHWH na'aseh — "all that Yehovah has spoken, we will do." The relative clause uses the piel perfect dibber ("he has spoken"), indicating a completed act of speech already known to the people, while the response itself, na'aseh, is in the imperfect, marking it as a future commitment rather than a completed deed.

The final clause shifts the subject to Moses, using the hiphil form vayashev — literally "he caused to return" — applied to divrei ha'am ("the words of the people"). The direct object marker 'et (H0853) marks this phrase grammatically, and the preposition 'el ("to", H0413) directs the action toward Yehovah, closing the communicative loop: Yehovah spoke, the people responded, and Moses returns their response to Yehovah.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the people's promise as "πάντα ὅσα εἶπεν ὁ θεός ποιήσομεν καὶ ἀκουσόμεθα" ("all that God said we will do and we will hear/obey"), adding a second verb (ἀκουσόμεθα, "we will hear") that has no counterpart in the Hebrew text, which contains only na'aseh ("we will do"). The LXX also uses ὁ θεός ("God") in place of the Hebrew YHWH in this clause, though it uses θεόν again where the Hebrew has YHWH in the final clause. The Vulgate's faciemus ("we will do") corresponds directly to the single Hebrew verb na'aseh, without the additional "hear" found in the LXX.