Exodus 2:6
וַתִּפְתַּח וַתִּרְאֵהוּ אֶת־הַיֶּלֶד וְהִנֵּה־נַעַר בֹּכֶה וַתַּחְמֹל עָלָיו וַתֹּאמֶר מִיַּלְדֵי הָֽעִבְרִים זֶֽה׃
✦ Hebrew interlinear
Tap a word to see its entry
✦ The same verse in five languages
וַתִּפְתַּח֙ וַתִּרְאֵ֣הוּ אֶת־הַיֶּ֔לֶד וְהִנֵּה־נַ֖עַר בֹּכֶ֑ה וַתַּחְמֹ֣ל עָלָ֔יו וַתֹּ֕אמֶר מִיַּלְדֵ֥י הָֽעִבְרִ֖ים זֶֽה׃
ἀνοίξασα δὲ ὁρᾷ παιδίον κλαῖον ἐν τῇ θίβει· καὶ ἐφείσατο αὐτοῦ ἡ θυγάτηρ Φαραώ, καὶ ἔφη Ἀπὸ τῶν παιδίων τῶν Ἐβραίων τοῦτο.
Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0
Latin (Vulgate)
aperiens, cernensque in ea parvulum vagientem, miserta ejus, ait: De infantibus Hebræorum est hic.
La abrió y vio al niño, y resulta que el pequeño estaba llorando. Se compadeció de él y dijo: “Este es uno de los niños hebreos”.
Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)
Y como la abrió, vió al niño; y he aquí que el niño lloraba. Y teniendo compasión de él, dijo: De los niños de los Hebreos es éste.
When she opened it, she saw the child, and behold, the little boy was crying. So she had compassion on him and said, “ This is one of the Hebrew children.”
✦ What the text says
Summary
The verse describes Pharaoh's daughter opening the container, seeing the crying infant, feeling compassion, and identifying him as a Hebrew child. The action moves through a chain of consecutive verbs typical of Hebrew narrative prose.
Key words
- tif.Tach ("she opened [it]", H6605A) — qal narrative form; continues the story sequence "and then she opened."
- tir.'Ehu ("she saw him", H7200G) — qal narrative verb with attached pronominal suffix hu ("him", H9033), fusing verb and object into one word.
- bo.Kheh ("crying", H1058) — qal participle, masculine singular, describing an ongoing state rather than a completed action; it presents the crying as something observed in progress.
- tach.Mol ("she had compassion", H2550) — qal narrative verb continuing the chain of consecutive actions.
- yal.Dei ha.'Ivrim ("children of the Hebrews", H3206 + H5680) — construct chain: yal.Dei ("children of") governs ha.'Ivrim ("the Hebrews"), forming a possessive-type relationship ("children belonging to the Hebrews").
What the text says
The verse is built almost entirely on the Hebrew narrative chain: va- + verb (vav-consecutive), a structure that strings actions together as "and then... and then..." — va.tifTach ("and she opened"), va.tir'Ehu ("and she saw him"), va.tachMol ("and she had compassion"), va.Tomer ("and she said"). This chain creates a rapid sequence of narrated events without needing to restate the subject each time, since the feminine verb forms alone indicate "she" throughout.
Between the third and fourth links of the chain, the narrative pauses with ve.hinneh ("and behold", H2009), an interjection that shifts from narrated action to presented perception — it marks what the subject saw at that moment. The participle bo.Kheh ("crying") reinforces this shift: rather than a completed narrative verb, it presents the crying child's condition as something ongoing and directly perceived.
The final clause, introduced by mi- ("[is] one of," H9006) and the construct phrase yal.Dei ha.'Ivrim, uses the construct relationship to link "children" to "the Hebrews" as a group identifier, with the demonstrative Zeh ("this", H2088) placed at the end of the sentence, following normal Hebrew predicate-first word order in identification clauses.
Differences between versions
The LXX adds a locational detail absent in the Hebrew: κλαῖον ἐν τῇ θίβει ("crying in the basket"), specifying where the child was seen, whereas the Hebrew simply states na'ar bokheh ("a lad crying") without repeating the container. The LXX also explicitly names the subject as ἡ θυγάτηρ Φαραώ ("the daughter of Pharaoh") for the compassion clause, while the Hebrew and the Vulgate leave the subject implicit in the verb form alone (tach.Mol, "she had compassion").
This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.