Exodus 2:7

Summary

The sister of the child addresses Pharaoh's daughter, proposing to fetch a nursing woman from among the Hebrew women so that she may nurse the child for her. The utterance is framed as a question introduced by the interrogative particle, followed by a proposal expressed in two further verbal forms.

Key words

• 'achot ("sister", H0269) — feminine singular construct, "sister of him," referring back to the child; the suffix supplies "his" without a separate word for the child's name.
• ha-'elekh (H9008 + H1980G) — the interrogative particle ha prefixed to the imperfect 'elekh ("will I go"), turning a plain future verb into a yes/no question: "Shall I go?"
• qarati ("will I call", H7121G) — a sequential (vav-consecutive) perfect that continues the force of the preceding imperfect question, so the two verbs together form one continuous query: "shall I go and call."
• meineqet ("suckling-nurse", H3243I) — a qal participial noun describing the woman by her function, "one who nurses."
• teiniq ("she may suckle", H3243H) — from the same root as meineqet but in the hiphil (causative) stem with a vav, expressing purpose or result: "so that she may cause [the child] to nurse," i.e., "nurse him."

What the text says

The sentence opens with the narrative vav on va-tomer ("and she said", H0559), attaching this speech directly to the ongoing story. The core of the sister's question is built from two verbs sharing one interrogative: ha-'elekh ("shall I go") and ve-qarati ("and shall I call"), the second being a vav-consecutive perfect that rides on the interrogative force of the first verb rather than starting a new independent statement. This construction allows a single question mark in Hebrew to govern two actions ("go" and "call") as one proposed course of action.

The object of the calling is 'ishah meineqet min ha-'ivriyyot — literally "a woman, a nursing one, from the Hebrew [women]" — where meineqet functions appositionally, describing the 'ishah ("woman", H0802G) by her nursing role, and min ha-'ivriyyot specifies the group she is drawn from using the gentilic plural 'ivriyyot ("Hebrew [women]", H5680).

The final clause, ve-teiniq lakh et-ha-yaled, shifts to the hiphil form teiniq, expressing the causative sense "so she may nurse/cause to nurse," with lakh ("for you", H9032) indicating the benefit accrues to Pharaoh's daughter, and 'et-ha-yaled marking "the child" (H3206) as the definite direct object via the untranslated marker 'et (H0853).

Differences between versions

The Vulgate specifies "soror pueri" ("sister of the child"), spelling out the referent of the Hebrew pronominal suffix on 'achotO ("his sister"), where the Hebrew leaves the antecedent implicit through the suffix alone. The LXX renders the interrogative construction with Theleis ("do you want") plus a subjunctive kaleso ("shall I call"), restructuring the two Hebrew verbs ('elekh, "go," and qarati, "call") into a single request framed around the addressee's will, rather than preserving the "go and call" sequence of the Hebrew.