Exodus 23:20

Summary

The verse presents YHWH announcing, through a direct first-person declaration, that he is sending a mal'akh ("angel/messenger", H4397) ahead of the addressee. The purpose is twofold: to guard the addressee during the journey and to bring him to a place already prepared by the speaker.

Key words

• hiNeh ("here!", H2009) — an interjection that draws attention to an imminent action, often translated "behold."
• shoLeach ("[am] about to send", H7971) — qal participle, masculine singular, expressing an action in progress or about to occur, not a simple future.
• mal'akh ("an angel/messenger", H4397) — masculine singular noun, unmarked by any possessive suffix in the Hebrew.
• lishmarekha ("to guard you", H8104 + H9031) — qal infinitive with a second-person masculine singular pronominal suffix, expressing purpose ("in order to guard you").
• hakhinoti ("I have prepared", H3559) — hiphil perfect, first person, denoting a completed causative action ("I caused to be ready").

What the text says

The sentence opens with hiNeh ("here!", H2009) plus the independent pronoun 'anoKhi ("I", H0595), a construction that emphasizes the speaker's identity before the verb appears. The verb shoLeach ("[am] about to send", H7971) is a participle, not a finite future form, which in Biblical Hebrew often marks an action already underway or imminent from the speaker's perspective — a nuance that a simple future translation like "I will send" does not fully carry.

The two purposes of the sending are expressed through parallel infinitive constructions: lishmarekha ("to guard you", H8104) and velahavi'akha ("and to bring you", H0935), both built on infinitives with attached second-person suffixes, tying the actions directly to the addressee. The final clause uses hakhinoti ("I have prepared", H3559), a hiphil perfect verb without a stated object of "to whom," so the Hebrew simply says "which I have prepared," leaving the recipient understood from context rather than grammatically marked.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew mal'akh ("an angel", H4397) carries no possessive suffix, but the LXX renders it as "τὸν ἄγγελόν μου" ("my angel") and the Vulgate as "angelum meum" ("my angel"), both adding an explicit first-person possessive not present in the Hebrew noun itself. Additionally, where the Hebrew has ha.maQom ("the place", H4725), the LXX uses "εἰς τὴν γῆν" ("into the land"), substituting "land" for "place." Modern translations such as SBLIBRE add "te" ("to you") after "he preparado," making explicit a recipient that the Hebrew hakhinoti ("I have prepared", H3559) leaves grammatically unstated.