Exodus 19:9

Summary

Yehovah tells Moses that he is about to come to him in a thick cloud, so that the people will hear when he speaks with Moses and thereby trust him permanently. The verse closes with Moses reporting the people's words back to Yehovah.

Key words

• ba' ("about to come", H0935G) — qal participle, expressing an action in progress or imminent, rendered here as "I am coming" rather than a simple future.
• 'av ("dark cloud of", H5645) — masculine singular noun in construct state, linked to he'anan ("the cloud", H6051) to form the compound expression "the dark cloud of the cloud" / "the thick cloud."
• yishma' ("may hear", H8085G) — qal jussive, marking purpose ("so that he may hear") rather than plain narration.
• bedabberi ("in my speaking", H1696G + suffix) — piel infinitive with 1st person suffix, meaning "while I speak" or "in my speaking," attached to a temporal/causal preposition be-.
• ya'aminu ("they will trust", H0539) — hiphil imperfect, a causative form ("to cause to be firm/trusted"), here meaning "they will put trust" in Moses.

What the text says

The verse opens with the standard narrative formula va-yo'mer Yehovah 'el-Mosheh ("and Yehovah said to Moses"), using the vav-narrative form of 'amar ("to say", H0559) to advance the story. Yehovah's speech begins with hinneh ("here!", H2009) followed by the independent pronoun 'anokhi ("I", H0595) and the participle ba' ("about to come", H0935G). The construction hinneh + pronoun + participle is common in Biblical Hebrew for signaling an imminent action, distinct from a finite future verb.

The phrase be-'av he-'anan ("in the dark-cloud of the cloud") stacks two nouns for cloud/thickness: 'av (H5645) in construct with the definite he-'anan (H6051), producing an intensified image of density rather than a simple "cloud."

The purpose clause introduced by ba'avur ("in order that", H5668) governs the jussive yishma' ("may hear", H8085G), followed by ha-'am ("the people", H5971A) as subject. The infinitive bedabberi ("in my speaking", H1696G with 1st-person suffix) specifies the circumstance under which the people will hear — while Yehovah speaks with Moses ('immakh, "with you", H5973A + suffix).

The second purpose clause, joined by ve-gam ("and also", H1571), uses bekha ("in you", H0413/H9031) as the object of trust and the hiphil imperfect ya'aminu ("they will trust", H0539), qualified by le-'olam ("for ever", H5769G).

The final clause repeats the vav-narrative pattern with va-yagged ("and he told", H5046, hiphil), stating that Moses reported divrei ha-'am ("the words of the people", H1697G construct + H5971A) back 'el-Yehovah ("to Yehovah").

Differences between versions

The LXX renders be-'av he-'anan ("in the dark-cloud of the cloud") as ἐν στύλῳ νεφέλης ("in a pillar of cloud"), introducing the image of a "pillar" not present in the Hebrew noun 'av (H5645), which denotes thickness/density rather than a columnar shape. The Vulgate's in caligine nubis ("in the darkness of a cloud") stays closer to the notion of density/obscurity found in the Hebrew construct phrase.