Exodus 23:22

Summary

Exodus 23:22 presents a conditional promise: if the addressee listens attentively to the voice of the messenger/entity mentioned in the preceding context and does everything spoken to him, then the divine speaker will act as enemy to his enemies and foe to his foes. The verse pivots on an emphatic conditional construction followed by two sequential consequences.

Key words

• ki 'im (H3588B / H0518B) — "that/if... except" — a compound conditional particle combination that introduces a strong conditional clause, often rendered "but if" or "if indeed."
• sha.Mo.a' ("carefully to listen", H8085H) — infinitive absolute of the same root as the following verb, used to intensify the verbal action; it has no independent translation but reinforces certainty or emphasis.
• tish.Ma' ("you will listen", H8085H) — qal imperfect, second person masculine, denoting future/ongoing action; paired with the infinitive absolute it forms the emphatic construction "you will surely listen."
• 'a.da.Ber ("I will say", H1696G) — piel imperfect, first person; the piel stem here carries an intensive nuance of speaking, referring to what will be spoken by the divine voice.
• 'a.yav.Ti ("I will be an enemy to", H0340) — qal sequential perfect, first person, continuing the narrative chain begun by ve ("and"); it marks the consequence following the fulfilled condition.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built as a single extended conditional period. It opens with the double particle ki 'im (H3588B, H0518B), which functions together to mark a strong or exceptive condition — "if indeed" or "but if." This is immediately reinforced by the infinitive absolute sha.Mo.a' (H8085H) placed before the finite verb tish.Ma' (H8085H) of the same root, a common Hebrew construction that intensifies the verb, emphasizing that the listening must be thorough or certain, not partial.

The apodosis (consequence) is introduced by the sequential vav on 'a.Si.ta ("you will do", H6213A), continuing the temporal/logical chain: first hearing, then doing "all that I will speak" (kol 'asher 'adabber, H3605/H0834A/H1696G). The verb 'a.da.Ber is in the piel stem, which in this root often marks the intensive nuance of authoritative speech. The final two clauses, ve'ayavti ("I will be an enemy to", H0340) and vetsarti ("I will be a foe to", H6696B), both sequential perfects, express two parallel, cognate results: enmity toward "your enemies" ('oyeveikha, H0341, construct participle plural) and hostility toward "your foes" (tsorerekha, H6887D, construct participle plural). The parallel participial constructions create a chiastic pairing of near-synonyms (enemy/foe), reinforcing the reciprocal nature of the promised action.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the Hebrew bekolo ("his voice") as "τῆς ἐμῆς φωνῆς" ("my voice"), shifting the referent explicitly to the divine first person, and it expands the passage with additional material (covenant-keeping, "holy nation") not present in the Hebrew verse as segmented here. The Vulgate follows the Hebrew structure more closely, rendering ki 'im as "Quod si" and preserving the enemy/foe parallelism ("inimicus ero inimicis tuis, et affligam affligentes te"), though it uses affligam ("I will afflict") for tsarti rather than a term matching "foe."