Exodus 3:19

Summary

The verse reports God's statement to Moses that the king of Egypt will not let the Israelites go despite the demand, unless compelled by a "strong hand." It combines a first-person declaration of certainty with a negated prediction about Pharaoh's future behavior.

Key words

• 'ani ("I", H0589) — independent personal pronoun placed before the verb, adding emphasis to the speaker's certainty (”I myself know”).
• yada'ti ("I know", H3045) — qal perfect, 1st person singular, denoting a completed, settled state of knowledge rather than an ongoing process.
• yitten ("he will permit/give", H5414K) — qal imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular, expressing future or ongoing action; here negated by lo' ("not", H3808) to state what the king will not do.
• la.halokh ("to go", H1980G) — qal infinitive with prefixed preposition la ("to", H9005), forming a purpose/result construction: "to let you go."
• yad chazakah ("a strong hand", H2389 + H3027H) — noun-adjective pair, feminine singular, functioning as an instrumental phrase describing the means by which departure might occur.

What the text says

The sentence opens with va-'ani yada'ti ("and I know"), where the pronoun 'ani (H0589) preceding the finite verb yada'ti (H3045) creates emphasis on the speaker's personal certainty, a common Hebrew construction for stress. The subordinate clause introduced by ki (H3588A) states the content known: lo-yitten 'etkhem melekh mitzrayim la-halokh — "the king of Egypt will not permit you to go." The verb yitten (H5414K) is imperfect, marking future/modal action, negated by lo' (H3808), and followed by the infinitive la-halokh (H1980G), which expresses the purpose of the permission being withheld.

The final clause, ve-lo be-yad chazakah ("and not by a strong hand"), repeats the negation particle lo' (H3808) before the instrumental phrase yad chazakah (H2389/H3027H). In the Hebrew word order, this creates a doubled negative structure whose exact logical relation to the first clause (a strengthened negation versus an exception clause) is not made explicit by conjunction alone; the syntax leaves the connection between the two negated clauses open to more than one construal.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew's second negation, ve-lo ("and not"), is rendered by the LXX as ἐὰν μὴ ("if not/unless") and by the Vulgate as nisi ("unless"), both converting the Hebrew's paired negatives into an exceptive clause ("he will not let you go, unless by a strong hand"). The LXX also names Φαραὼ ("Pharaoh") explicitly as the subject, a detail not present in the Hebrew, which reads only melekh mitzrayim ("king of Egypt", H4428G/H4714G).