Exodus 24:16

Summary

The verse describes the kevod ("glory") of Yehovah settling on Mount Sinai, with a cloud covering the mountain for six days. On the seventh day, a call goes out to Moses from within the cloud.

Key words

i.yish.Kon ("it settled down", H7931) — qal narrative verb (vayyiqtol form), third person masculine singular, continuing the sequential storyline; describes the glory taking up a settled position, not merely appearing momentarily.

ke.Vod- ("glory of", H3519) — masculine singular noun in construct state, meaning it must be bound to the following word Yehovah; the construct chain "kevod-Yehovah" functions as a single compound subject, "the glory of Yehovah."

y.kha.Se. ("it covered", H3680) — piel (intensive) narrative verb, third person masculine singular, with the object marked by the attached pronominal suffix hu ("it/him", H9033) referring back to the mountain; the piel stem intensifies the covering action compared to a simple qal form.

She.shet ("six of", H8337) — cardinal number in construct form, bound to yamim ("days", H3117G), producing the phrase "six of days," i.e., "six days," marking the duration before the subsequent event.

i.yik.Ra' ("he summoned", H7121G) — qal narrative verb, third person masculine singular, introducing a new action after the six-day interval; the subject is not explicitly named in this clause but continues from the preceding narrative chain.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built as a chain of narrative (vayyiqtol) verbs — va-yishkon, va-yekhasehu, va-yiqra — each introduced by the narrative vav (H9001), which links events sequentially: "and it settled... and it covered... and he called." This chain structure presents the events as a continuous, ordered sequence rather than isolated statements.

The subject of the first clause is the construct phrase kevod-Yehovah ("glory of Yehovah"), which settles (yishkon) "on" ('al, H5921A) the "mountain of Sinai" — itself another construct pairing, har Sinai. The second clause shifts the grammatical subject to he'anan ("the cloud", H6051, with the definite article H9009), which "covers" (piel form of H3680) the mountain; the object pronoun hu attached to the verb refers back to the mountain rather than to Moses or the glory. The duration is given by the construct numeral phrase sheshet yamim, "six of days."

The third clause introduces a call (yiqra) "on the day, the seventh" (ba-yom ha-shevi'i), using an ordinal number matching in gender and number with yom ("day", H3117G). The final phrase, mi-tokh he'anan ("from the middle of the cloud"), uses another construct noun, tokh ("middle of", H8432), to specify the location from which the call originates — literally "from the midst of the cloud."

Differences between versions

The Hebrew text does not explicitly name the subject of yiqra ("he called") in verse 16; the subject is implied from context. The BSB and SBLIBRE translations both supply "the LORD" as the explicit subject of the calling action, while the Vulgate uses "vocavit eum" ("he called him"), adding the object "him" (referring to Moses) that is not present as a separate word in the Hebrew clause structure, where Moses is instead marked by the preposition 'el ("to", H0413) attached directly to his name.