Exodus 3:1

Summary

Exodus 3:1 opens a new narrative unit describing Moses' occupation as shepherd for his father-in-law Jethro, priest of Midian. The verse then narrates two sequential actions: Moses drove the flock beyond the wilderness and arrived at Horeb, identified as "the mountain of God."

Key words

• ro'eh ("pasturing", H7462B) — qal participle, masculine singular, describing an ongoing state/occupation ("was pasturing") rather than a single completed act, paired with hayah ("he was", H1961) in a periphrastic construction.
• choten ("father-in-law", H2859A) — qal participle used as a substantive, in construct form ("father-in-law of"), linking Jethro to Moses.
• kohen ("priest of", H3548) — masculine singular noun in construct state, attaching to Midyan ("Midian", H4080H) to specify Jethro's role.
• va-yinhag ("and he drove", H5090A) — qal narrative (vayyiqtol) form, marking a discrete completed action that advances the story sequence.
• Elohim ("God", H0430G) — masculine plural noun form used with singular grammatical reference to God, in construct with har ("mountain of", H2022G).

What the text says

The verse begins with the conjunction u ("and", H9002) attached to Mosheh ("Moses", H4872), then uses the construction hayah ro'eh — literally "he was pasturing" — combining the qal perfect hayah with the qal participle ro'eh. This periphrastic pattern (perfect verb + participle) expresses a durative or habitual state in the past, distinct from a simple finite verb; it frames Moses' shepherding as an ongoing background situation before the narrative action begins.

The direct object marker 'et (H0853) appears twice (before tzon, "flock", H6629G) without independent translation, marking the grammatical object of the participle and later of the verb va-yinhag. Jethro is identified through a chain of construct nouns: choten-o ("his father-in-law", with pronominal suffix -o, H9023) and kohen Midyan ("priest of Midian"), stacking descriptive titles onto the proper name Yitro (H3503).

The narrative proper begins with the vav-consecutive (narrative vav, H9001) prefixed to yinhag ("he drove", H5090A) and yavo' ("he came", H0935G), both qal narrative forms that mark sequential, completed actions — the grammatical hallmark of Hebrew narrative progression. The phrase har ha-Elohim ("mountain of the God", H2022G + H0430G) uses construct state; the noun Elohim is morphologically plural but functions with singular reference in this expression. The final word Chorevah carries a directional he suffix (H9011), indicating motion "toward" Horeb, reinforced by the preceding preposition 'el ("to", H0413).

Differences between versions

The Hebrew achar ha-midbar ("behind/after the wilderness", H0310A) is rendered by the LXX as hypo tēn erēmon ("under/toward the wilderness") and by the Vulgate as ad interiora deserti ("to the interior parts of the desert"), each construing the spatial relation differently from the Hebrary construct "behind."