Exodus 2:23

Summary

The verse marks a temporal transition ("many days" later) in which the king of Egypt dies, and the Israelites, under forced labor, groan and cry out, their cry rising to God. The sentence chains five narrative actions using the vav-consecutive construction typical of Biblical Hebrew narrative.

Key words

• va-yehi ("and it was", H9001+H1961) — narrative vav + qal verb, the standard formula opening a new narrative unit ("and it came to pass").
• va-yeanechu ("and they groaned", H0584) — niphal narrative form; the niphal stem often marks an action experienced by the subject rather than actively initiated, fitting the groaning under labor.
• avodah ("labor", H5656G) — feminine singular noun, repeated twice (lines 19 and 31), framing the entire clause about the cry with the cause of suffering.
• shav'atam ("their cry for help", H7775 + H9028) — construct noun with pronominal suffix "their," specifying whose cry ascends.
• Elohim ("God", H0430G) — masculine plural noun functioning as the addressee toward whom the cry moves (el-, H0413).

What the text says

The verse is built as a chain of five vav-consecutive clauses, each advancing the narrative sequentially: the king dies (va-yamot, H4191), the Israelites groan (va-yeanechu, H0584), they cry out (va-yiz'aku, H2199), and their cry ascends (va-ta'al, H5927G). This chaining structure is a hallmark of Hebrew narrative prose, where each new vav-verb marks "and then" rather than requiring separate temporal conjunctions.

The phrase ba-yamim ha-rabbim ha-hem ("in the days, the many, those", H3117G + H7227A + H1992) uses a doubled article construction (ha- on both "many" and "on those") that functions adjectivally, modifying "days" — a structure that in English collapses into "after many days" but in Hebrew keeps the noun-adjective-demonstrative sequence explicit.

The noun avodah ("labor", H5656G) appears twice, bracketing the clause about groaning and crying: the Israelites groan "from the labor" (line 17-19) and their cry ascends "from the labor" (line 29-31). This repetition frames the entire report of suffering with its stated cause at both the beginning and end of the unit, a structure not always preserved with equal symmetry in translation.

The verb va-yeanechu ("they groaned", H0584) is in the niphal stem, distinct from the qal verbs used elsewhere in the chain (va-yamot, va-yiz'aku, va-ta'al), marking it grammatically as a distinct kind of action within the sequence.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders melekh Mitzrayim ("king of Egypt", H4428G + H4714G) more elliptically as "ὁ Αἰγύπτου" ("the [ruler] of Egypt"), omitting an explicit word for "king" in the Greek text as given. The Vulgate's "rex Ægypti" preserves both terms. Where the Hebrew repeats min-ha-avodah ("from the labor") twice framing the passage, the LXX and Vulgate both render this repetition as "ἀπὸ τῶν ἔργων" / "ab operibus," preserving the double occurrence but with "works" rather than "labor" as the semantic choice.