Exodus 23:10

Summary

Exodus 23:10 instructs that for a period of six years, the addressee (grammatically masculine singular) is to sow his land and gather its produce. The verse sets up a temporal condition that governs the command in the following verse.

Key words

• Shesh ("six", H8337) — cardinal number introducing the time span that frames the entire instruction.
• sha.Nim ("years", H8141) — masculine plural noun, paired with the numeral to specify the duration of the agricultural cycle.
• tiz.Ra' ("you will sow", H2232) — qal imperfect, second person masculine singular, expressing an ongoing or repeated future action across the six-year period.
• 'a.saf.Ta ("you will gather", H0622) — qal sequential perfect (vav-consecutive), continuing the narrative chain begun by the imperfect; it marks the next expected action in sequence, "and you will gather."
• te.vu.'a.Ta + h ("its produce" / "her produce", H8393 + H9024) — feminine singular noun in construct with a third-person feminine suffix referring back to 'ar.Tze.kha ("your land"), H0776G.

What the text says

The verse opens with a construct phrase, Shesh sha.Nim ("six years"), placed before the verb tiz.Ra' ("you will sow"). This word order foregrounds the time frame rather than the action itself, signaling that the six-year span is the organizing element of the sentence. The verb tiz.Ra' is a qal imperfect, which in Biblical Hebrew often conveys habitual or repeated action extending through the stated period — here, sowing done year after year across the six years.

The second clause uses 'a.saf.Ta, a qal perfect with vav-consecutive (sequential perfect), which grammatically continues the verbal chain initiated by the imperfect. This construction ties "gathering" to "sowing" as a continuous, expected sequence within each of the six years, rather than as an isolated one-time event. The object of gathering, te.vu.'a.Ta-h ("its produce"), carries a feminine suffix agreeing with 'ar.Tze.kha ("your land"), a feminine noun, making explicit that the produce belongs to the land just sown.

Differences between versions

The LXX (Ἔξ ἔτη σπερεῖς τὴν γῆν σου) and Vulgate (Sex annis seminabis terram tuam) both render 'ar.Tze.kha ("your land") without reproducing the construct-plus-suffix nuance distinctly marked in Hebrew, though the meaning "your land" is preserved. The Hebrew 'et- direct object markers before 'ar.Tze.kha and te.vu.'a.Ta-h have no equivalent in Greek or Latin, as both target languages mark the object through case or word order rather than a separate particle.