Exodus 24:1

Summary

The verse reports a divine command addressed to Moses, instructing him to ascend toward Yehovah together with Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and seventy elders of Israel. The final clause specifies that this group is to bow down while remaining at a distance.

Key words

• 'a.Mar ("he said", H0559) — qal perfect, third person masculine singular; marks the utterance as a completed, single act of speaking, with no explicit subject noun in this clause (the subject is inferred from context, since "Yehovah" appears only later in the verse as the object of "come up to").
• 'a.Leh ("come up", H5927G) — qal imperative, second person masculine singular; a direct command form addressed to one person (Moses), not a request or wish.
• zik.Nei ("elders of", H2205G) — masculine plural construct form of the adjective; the construct state links it grammatically to Yis.ra.'El ("Israel", H3478), producing the phrase "elders of Israel" rather than a standalone noun.
• hish.ta.cha.vi.Tem ("you will bow down", H7812) — hishtaphel stem, sequential perfect, second person masculine plural; the plural form shows the command shifts from addressing Moses alone ('a.Leh is singular) to addressing the whole group named in the verse.
• ra.Chok ("a distance", H7350) — masculine singular adjective, used adverbially with the preposition me. ("from", H9006) to form "from a distance."

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence opens with ve'el-Mosheh 'amar ("and to Moses he said"), placing the indirect object ('el-Mosheh) before the verb 'amar, a word order that emphasizes Moses as the one addressed. The subject of 'amar is not stated by name in this clause; the referent "Yehovah" appears only in the following clause as the destination of the movement ('el-Yehovah, "to Yehovah"). The imperative 'aleh ("come up") is grammatically singular, directed at Moses alone, while the list that follows ('atah ve'Aharon Nadav va'Avihu' veshiv'im mizziqnei Yisra'el, "you and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel") adds companions to the movement described by the singular verb.

The final verb, hishtachaviTem ("you will bow down"), switches to a plural form, grammatically encompassing Moses and all those named with him. This is marked as a sequential perfect, meaning it continues the narrative sequence begun by the imperative 'aleh. The clause ends with merachoq ("from a distance"), an adverbial phrase built from the preposition me and the adjective rachoq, specifying the manner of the bowing rather than its location relative to the ascent itself.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the opening as "Καὶ Μωυσῇ εἶπεν" ("and to Moses he said") without an explicit subject either, matching the Hebrew's lack of a named subject for 'amar. However, the LXX's final clause reads "καὶ προσκυνήσουσιν μακρόθεν τῷ κυρίῳ" ("and they will worship from afar to the Lord"), using a third-person plural verb (προσκυνήσουσιν) rather than the second-person plural of the Hebrew hishtachaviTem, and it adds the explicit dative phrase "τῷ κυρίῳ" ("to the Lord"), which has no separate corresponding word in the Hebrew clause itself (the Hebrew leaves the object of the bowing unstated in that final clause). The Vulgate follows the Hebrew's second-person plural with "adorabitis" ("you will worship"), matching the grammatical person of hishtachaviTem rather than the LXX's third-person rendering.