Exodus 23:17

Summary

The verse specifies that three times per year every male member of the community must appear before "the Lord YHWH" (ha-Adon YHWH). The Hebrew uses a distinctive niphal verb form for "appear" and a construct chain to designate the male members obligated to this appearance.

Key words

• ye.ra.'Eh ("he will present himself", H7200G) — niphal imperfect of the root ra'ah ("to see"). The niphal stem here carries a reflexive/passive nuance: rather than "he will see," the form means "he will be seen" or "he will present himself to be seen," with the subject undergoing the action of appearing rather than performing an act of seeing.
• kol ("every", H3605) — masculine singular construct, opening a construct chain with the following noun; grammatically singular even though it refers to a collective group.
• ze.Khu.re.kha ("your male", H2138) — masculine singular construct with pronominal suffix -kha ("your"). Combined with kol, it forms "every male of yours," a singular collective expression rather than an explicit plural.
• pe.Nei ("presence of", H6440G) — masculine plural construct of "face," used idiomatically to mean "before" or "in the presence of." The plural form is grammaticalized and does not indicate multiple faces.
• ha.'A.don ("the lord", H0113) — definite noun functioning as a title placed immediately before the divine name Yehovah (H3068G), producing the sequence "the Lord YHWH."

What the text says

The sentence opens with a temporal adverbial phrase, sha.Losh pe.'a.Mim ba.sha.Nah ("three times in the year"), which is fronted before the verb — a common Hebrew word order for emphasizing time expressions. The verb ye.ra.'Eh then follows, agreeing grammatically with the singular collective subject kol-zekhurekha, literally "every male of yours." Although the referent is plural in sense (all males), Hebrew grammar treats kol + singular noun as a singular construction, which is why the verb is also singular ("he will present himself") rather than plural.

The destination of this appearance is marked by el-penei, "to the presence of," followed by the double designation ha-Adon Yehovah — "the Lord YHWH." This pairs a common noun functioning as title (ha-Adon) directly with the personal divine name (Yehovah), a construction distinct from the more frequent "YHWH your God" pattern found elsewhere in the Torah.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew double designation ha-Adon YHWH ("the Lord YHWH") is rendered in the LXX as kyriou tou theou sou ("the Lord your God") and in the Vulgate as Domino Deo tuo ("the Lord your God"), both adding a possessive "your" and the word "God" not present in the Hebrew phrase's second element. The Hebrew singular collective kol-zekhurekha ("every male of yours") is rendered as a plural in the BSB ("all your males") and SBLIBRE ("todos los hombres"), while the RV1909 preserves the singular collective sense with "todo varón tuyo" ("every male of yours").