Exodus 25:1

Summary

Exodus 25:1 is a short narrative formula introducing direct divine speech: it states that Yehovah spoke to Moses, opening a new section of discourse that will follow.

Key words

• va ("and", H9001) — narrative vav that links this sentence to the preceding story, marking sequential action rather than a new independent topic.
• y.da.Ber ("he spoke", H1696G) — piel stem of the verb, third person masculine singular, in narrative (consecutive) form; the piel here carries the basic sense of speaking with communicative intent rather than a purely intensive nuance.
• Yehovah ("Yehovah", H3068G) — the proper divine name, functioning as the grammatical subject of the verb.
• mo.Sheh ("Moses", H4872) — proper name, the addressee, marked by the preposition 'el ("to", H0413).
• Mor ("saying", H0559) — qal infinitive construct, introduced by the prefixed preposition le ("to/for", H9005); this infinitive construct commonly functions to open reported speech, equivalent to "as follows."

What the text says

The verse follows the standard Hebrew narrative pattern for introducing divine speech: subject-verb order is inverted from typical prose because of the vav-consecutive construction (va-yedabber, "and he spoke"), which advances the storyline. The verb y.da.Ber is in the piel stem, the form regularly used in Biblical Hebrew for the act of speaking (as opposed to the qal, which is not used for this verb in this sense). The subject Yehovah immediately follows the verb, and the addressee is marked with the preposition 'el ("to") plus the name Moshe.

The final element, le'mor (rendered here as le + Mor), is an infinitive construct built on the root "to say" (H0559). This construction is a fixed formula in narrative Hebrew that functions to open a quotation — it signals that what follows are the exact words spoken. Grammatically it does not add new content but marks the transition from narration to direct speech, a nuance that a simple translation "saying" or "he said" only partially conveys, since the infinitive construct in Hebrew has a more formulaic, almost punctuation-like role than a finite verb would.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew places Yehovah immediately after the verb, matching the LXX's κύριος after ἐλάλησεν and the Vulgate's Dominus after Locutusque. The BSB shifts to "Then the LORD said," converting the infinitive formula le'mor into a full finite verb "said" and dropping a separate rendering of "saying." The SBLIBRE splits the single verbal action into two parallel verbs, "le habló... y le dijo" ("spoke to him and said to him"), representing the one Hebrew clause with two coordinated Spanish verbs.