Exodus 20:2

Summary

Exodus 20:2 opens with a self-declaration by YHWH identifying himself as the God of the addressee, followed by a relative clause that identifies him as the one who brought the addressee out of Egypt, described as a "house of slaves."

Key words

• 'Anokhi ("I", H0595) — independent personal pronoun placed first, giving emphatic focus to the speaker before any verb appears.
• YHWH ("Yehovah", H3068G) — the divine proper name, functioning here in apposition to 'Anokhi.
• 'Elohei-kha ("God of you / your God", H0430G + suffix) — construct noun 'Elohim bound to the 2nd person masculine singular suffix -kha, marking a direct relational address to a singular "you."
• hotze'ti-kha ("I brought you out", H3318H) — Hiphil (causative) perfect verb with 1st person subject and 2nd person masculine singular object suffix; the Hiphil stem indicates the subject caused the action of "going out" to happen to the object.
• 'avadim ("slaves", H5650) — masculine plural noun in construct chain with beit ("house of", H1004B), forming the phrase "house of slaves."

What the text says

The verse begins with 'Anokhi ("I", H0595) immediately followed by YHWH (H3068G) and 'Elohekha (H0430G with suffix), forming a nominal sentence without a copula verb in Hebrew — the structure is simply "I, Yehovah, God-of-you." The suffix -kha on 'Elohekha is singular, addressing one grammatical "you," even though the audience is collective.

The relative clause introduced by 'asher ("who/that", H0834A) contains the Hiphil perfect verb hotze'tikha (H3318H), combining the verbal root for "going out" with a causative sense — "I caused you to go out" — and carrying its own object suffix -kha ("you"). This verb governs two prepositional phrases marked by min ("from", H9006): me-'eretz Mitzrayim ("from the land of Egypt") and mi-beit 'avadim ("from a house of slaves/servants"). Both 'eretz (H0776G) and beit (H1004B) are construct-state nouns, each binding to what follows: "land of Egypt" and "house of slaves." The parallel construction with two "from" phrases sets "land of Egypt" alongside "house of slaves" as two ways of describing the same place of origin.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders 'Anokhi + YHWH + 'Elohekha as "Ἐγώ εἰμι Κύριος ὁ θεός σου" ("I am Lord the God of you"), inserting the copula εἰμι ("I am") which is not present as a separate verb in the Hebrew nominal clause. The Vulgate similarly supplies "Ego sum Dominus Deus tuus" ("I am the Lord your God"), using "sum" where the Hebrew has no equivalent verb form. For mi-beit 'avadim ("from a house of slaves", H1004B + H5650), the LXX gives "ἐξ οἴκου δουλίας" ("out of a house of slavery," using an abstract noun δουλίας rather than a plural of persons), while the Vulgate has "de domo servitutis" ("from the house of servitude"), also rendering the construct with an abstract noun rather than the plural "slaves" found in the Hebrew 'avadim (H5650).