Exodus 2:13

Summary

The verse recounts a second outing where the subject finds two Hebrew men fighting each other, and he confronts the one identified as "guilty" with a direct question about why he is striking his companion.

Key words

• va-yeitze' ("and he went out", H3318G) — qal narrative form, marking the next event in the sequence ("and then he went out").
• nitzim ("struggling together", H5327A) — niphal participle, masculine plural; the niphal stem conveys mutual or reciprocal action, describing an ongoing state of the two men grappling with each other rather than one acting upon another.
• la-rasha' ("to the guilty [one]", H7563) — noun with prepositional prefix la ("to the"); this designates one of the two men specifically as "the guilty one" before any question is asked.
• takeh ("are you striking", H5221) — hiphil imperfect, second person masculine; the hiphil stem is causative ("to cause a blow"), and the imperfect aspect presents the striking as ongoing or repeated.
• re'e-kha ("your companion", H7453 + H9021) — construct noun with pronominal suffix, literally "companion-of-you," linking the victim directly to the addressee as "your" fellow.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence opens with the narrative chain va-yeitze' ("and he went out", H3318G), placing this scene on "the day, the second" (ba-yom ha-sheni, H3117G + H8145), an ordinal construction marking a second occasion after an earlier one. The interjection hinneh ("there!", H2009) introduces the discovery with narrative immediacy, presenting the two men as already found in a state of conflict. The two men are marked by she-nei... 'anashim 'ivrim ("two... men, Hebrew", H8147 + H0582 + H5680), a construct-plus-gentilic phrase identifying them by ethnic group before their action is stated.

The action itself, nitzim (H5327A), is a niphal participle describing an ongoing mutual struggle — the grammatical form itself expresses reciprocity, that the striving is done to and by both parties equally, rather than a one-sided attack.

The subject's speech is directed la-rasha' ("to the guilty [one]", H7563), a label applied by the narrator/subject before any dialogue occurs, distinguishing this man from his unnamed opponent. The question that follows, lamah takeh re'e-kha ("why are you striking your companion", H4100 + H5221 + H7453 + H9021), uses a hiphil imperfect verb, casting the striking as a continuing or repeated causative action, and closes with the construct phrase "companion-of-you," tying the injured party to the addressee grammatically.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew rasha' ("guilty [one]", H7563) is rendered in the LXX simply as τῷ ("the one," with an implied referent supplied by context, matching "Διὰ τί σὺ τύπτεις"), without an explicit adjective corresponding to "guilty." The Vulgate makes this explicit with qui faciebat injuriam ("who was doing injury"), a descriptive clause rather than a single noun. The Hebrew niphal participle nitzim ("struggling together", H5327A), which grammatically implies mutual action, is rendered in the LXX with διαπληκτιζομένους (a middle/passive participle, "fighting/wrangling") and in the Vulgate with rixantes ("quarreling"), both of which convey the reciprocal sense but through different verbal forms than the Hebrew niphal.