Exodus 22:30

Summary

The verse instructs that the same treatment applies to the firstborn of the ox and the flock as described in the preceding verse: the newborn animal remains with its mother for seven days, and on the eighth day it is to be given over. The Hebrew uses short clauses with construct chains and pronominal suffixes to link the animals, the time period, and the recipient.

Key words

• ken ("thus", H3651C) — adverb opening the verse, pointing back to a prior instruction and signaling that the same rule now applies to a new case.
• ta'aSeh ("you will do", H6213A) — qal imperfect, second person masculine singular; expresses an ongoing obligation directed at the addressee.
• shiv'At yamim ("seven of days", H7651 + H3117G) — the numeral is in construct form, literally "seven of days," forming a fixed time-span expression.
• 'immo ("its mother", H0517 + H9023) — noun with third-person masculine singular suffix, specifying whose mother is meant (the animal's).
• titteno-li ("you will give it - to me", H5414G + H9033 + H9030) — qal imperfect with an object suffix ("it") and the preposition li ("to me", H9030 attached), combining the verb, its direct object, and its recipient into one word-unit.

What the text says

The sentence opens with ken ("thus") plus the verb ta'aSeh ("you will do"), both in the second-person singular imperfect, addressing an individual reader/hearer. The two objects of the instruction — le-shorekha ("to your ox") and le-tzonekha ("to your sheep") — are each nouns in construct form with a second-person possessive suffix, meaning literally "to the ox of you" and "to the flock of you." These are linked by repeated prepositions le ("to", H9005), giving a parallel structure rather than a single combined subject.

The time clause shiv'At yamim yihyeh 'im-'immo ("seven of days it will be with its mother") places the numeral-plus-noun construct first for emphasis, followed by the verb yihyeh ("it will be", third person, referring back to the offspring implied by "ox/sheep"). The phrase 'im-'immo ("with its mother") uses the construct noun 'em ("mother") with a third-person suffix, tying the offspring grammatically to its dam.

The final clause, ba-yom ha-shemini titteno-li ("on the eighth day you will give it to me"), stacks a definite temporal phrase (ba-yom, "on the day," + ha-shemini, "the eighth") before the verb titteno ("you will give it"), which itself carries both the object suffix ("it") and the dative suffix -li ("to me") in H5414G's extended form — compressing verb, object, and recipient into a single word.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the animals explicitly as τὸν μόσχον ("the calf"), τὸ πρόβατόν ("the sheep"), and τὸ ὑποζύγιόν ("the beast of burden/donkey"), adding a third category not present in the Hebrew, which names only shor ("ox", H7794) and tzon ("flock/sheep", H6629G). The Vulgate follows the Hebrew more closely with "bobus" (oxen) and "ovibus" (sheep), matching two categories. The BSB and SBLIBRE both render generically as "cattle and sheep," and the SBLIBRE adds interpretive language ("the primera cría," "the first offspring") not explicit in the Hebrew wording of this verse itself, which simply states "your ox" and "your flock" via construct forms.