Exodus 2:5
וַתֵּרֶד בַּת־פַּרְעֹה לִרְחֹץ עַל־הַיְאֹר וְנַעֲרֹתֶיהָ הֹלְכֹת עַל־יַד הַיְאֹר וַתֵּרֶא אֶת־הַתֵּבָה בְּתוֹךְ הַסּוּף וַתִּשְׁלַח אֶת־אֲמָתָהּ וַתִּקָּחֶֽהָ
✦ Hebrew interlinear
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✦ The same verse in five languages
וַתֵּ֤רֶד בַּת־פַּרְעֹה֙ לִרְחֹ֣ץ עַל־הַיְאֹ֔ר וְנַעֲרֹתֶ֥יהָ הֹלְכֹ֖ת עַל־יַ֣ד הַיְאֹ֑ר וַתֵּ֤רֶא אֶת־הַתֵּבָה֙ בְּת֣וֹךְ הַסּ֔וּף וַתִּשְׁלַ֥ח אֶת־אֲמָתָ֖הּ וַתִּקָּחֶֽהָ
κατέβη δὲ ἡ θυγάτηρ Φαραὼ λούσασθαι ἐπὶ τὸν ποταμόν, καὶ αἱ ἅβραι αὐτῆς παρεπορεύοντο παρὰ τὸν ποταμόν• καὶ ἰδοῦσα τὴν θῖβιν ἐν τῷ ἕλει, ἀποστείλασα τὴν ἅβραν ἀνείλατο αὐτήν.
Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0
Latin (Vulgate)
Ecce autem descendebat filia Pharaonis ut lavaretur in flumine: et puellæ ejus gradiebantur per crepidinem alvei. Quæ cum vidisset fiscellam in papyrione, misit unam e famulabus suis: et allatam
La hija del faraón bajó a bañarse al río, mientras sus doncellas caminaban por la orilla. Al ver la canasta entre los juncos, mandó a su sirvienta a buscarla.
Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)
Y la hija de Faraón descendió á lavarse al río, y paseándose sus doncellas por la ribera del río, vió ella la arquilla en el carrizal, y envió una criada suya á que la tomase.
Soon the daughter of Pharaoh went down to bathe in the Nile, and her attendants were walking along the riverbank. And when she saw the basket among the reeds, she sent her maidservant to retrieve it.
✦ What the text says
Summary
The daughter of Pharaoh goes down to the Nile to bathe while her attendants walk along the riverbank. She notices a basket among the reeds, sends her maidservant, and has it retrieved. The verse is built as a chain of narrative (wayyiqtol) verbs describing successive actions.
Key words
- bat ("daughter of", H1323G) — feminine singular construct, binding "daughter" directly to "Pharaoh" without an intervening word for "of."
- Te.red ("she went down", H3381) — qal narrative (wayyiqtol) form; this verb form links the sentence to what precedes it in the story sequence ("and then she went down").
- holekhot ("were walking", H1980I) — qal active participle, feminine plural; participles in Hebrew narrative typically mark background or simultaneous action rather than the main storyline.
- yad ("side of", H3027K) — masculine singular construct; here used idiomatically in the phrase "al yad" ("at the side of") rather than its literal sense "hand."
- tevah ("basket", H8392) — feminine singular absolute noun, the object Pharaoh's daughter perceives.
What the text says
The verse alternates between two grammatical modes. The main storyline advances through a series of wayyiqtol (narrative) verbs: Te.red ("she went down," H3381), Te.re' ("she saw," H7200G), tish.Lach ("she sent," H7971G), and ti.ka.Che.ha ("she took/fetched it," H3947G, with the pronominal suffix ha, H9034, "her/it" referring back to the basket). Each of these verbs is grammatically dependent on the one before it, forming a tight chain of sequential actions performed by the same subject, "the daughter of Pharaoh" (bat par'oh, H1323G/H6547I).
Interrupting this chain is a participial clause: na'aroteiha holekhot ("her female attendants were walking," H5291/H1980I). The participle holekhot does not carry the story forward the way the wayyiqtol forms do; grammatically it presents the attendants' walking as a backdrop occurring while the main action unfolds, rather than as the next event in sequence.
The object of the daughter's sight, ha-tevah ("the basket," H8392), is marked by the direct object particle 'et (H0853), which has no independent gloss but signals that "the basket" is the direct object of Te.re'. Its location is given through two stacked construct/prepositional phrases: be-tokh ha-suf ("in the midst of the rush[es]," H8432/H5488H), specifying position within the reeds along the ye'or ("River," H2975G), the same term used earlier for where she bathed and where her attendants walked.
Differences between versions
The LXX renders tevah (H8392) as θῖβιν, a transliterated Egyptian-derived term, rather than translating it, while the Vulgate uses fiscellam ("little basket"). The LXX also compresses the Hebrew's three separate narrative verbs (tish.Lach, "she sent"; ti.ka.Che.ha, "she fetched it") into a participle plus finite verb (ἀποστείλασα... ἀνείλατο, "having sent... she took up"), altering the step-by-step verbal chain visible in the Hebrew. The Vulgate splits the final action across the verse boundary ("misit unam e famulabus suis: et allatam..."), continuing the clause into the next verse rather than completing it within v.5 as the Hebrew does.
This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.