Exodus 21:4

Summary

This verse addresses the case of a male servant whose master gave him a wife during his service. If that wife bore him sons or daughters, the woman and her children remain the property of the master, while the man himself goes free alone at the end of his term.

Key words

• 'adonav ("his masters", H0113) — masculine plural noun in construct with a pronominal suffix; despite the plural form, it functions as a singular "master" (a common Hebrew plural of respect/intensity), referring to the servant's owner.
• yitten ("he will give", H5414O) — qal imperfect, marking a future/conditional action within the "if" clause set up by 'im ("if", H0518A).
• yaledah ("she will bear", H3205) — qal sequential perfect (vav + perfect), continuing the temporal chain begun by the imperfect yitten; this verb form links consequence to the preceding condition.
• tihyeh ("she will belong", H1961) — qal imperfect of the verb "to be," here indicating future state/ownership; grammatically the subject is ha'ishah ("the woman", H0802H) together with yeladeiha ("her children", H3206).
• begappo ("with his body", H1610) — construct noun with pronominal suffix, literally "in/with his body," describing the manner of the man's departure.

What the text says

The verse is built as a conditional sentence: the protasis ('im + yitten, "if his master(s) gives") sets up a scenario, followed by a sequential perfect (yaledah, "and she bears") that narrates the resulting event as part of the same temporal chain. This grammatical pairing — imperfect followed by vav + perfect — is typical of Biblical Hebrew casuistic (case) law, where a hypothetical situation unfolds in sequence.

The apodosis states the legal outcome using tihyeh ("she will belong", H1961), a form of the verb "to be" that here expresses future disposition or legal status rather than mere existence. The subject of this clause is compound: ha'ishah ("the woman") and yeladeiha ("her children", construct form with suffix "her"), both governed by the singular verb tihyeh. The phrase la'adonei-ha ("to her masters", H0113 again in plural-of-respect form with feminine suffix) specifies to whom the woman and children belong.

The final clause contrasts the man's fate: hu yetse begappo ("he will go out with his body/alone"). The noun gap ("body", H1610) in construct with the suffix "his" is an idiom describing the manner of departure — literally "in his own body," meaning without additional possessions gained from the arrangement (i.e., without the wife and children).

Differences between versions

The LXX renders begappo ("with his body", H1610) as μόνος ("alone"), an interpretive translation of the idiom rather than a literal rendering. The Vulgate instead reads cum vestitu suo ("with his own clothing"), a different interpretive choice for the same Hebrew phrase. The Hebrew gap itself does not explicitly mean "alone" or "clothing"; both versions offer distinct readings of this idiomatic expression describing how the man departs.