Exodus 3:20
וְשָׁלַחְתִּי אֶת־יָדִי וְהִכֵּיתִי אֶת־מִצְרַיִם בְּכֹל נִפְלְאֹתַי אֲשֶׁר אֶֽעֱשֶׂה בְּקִרְבּוֹ וְאַחֲרֵי־כֵן יְשַׁלַּח אֶתְכֶֽם׃
✦ Hebrew interlinear
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✦ The same verse in five languages
וְשָׁלַחְתִּ֤י אֶת־יָדִי֙ וְהִכֵּיתִ֣י אֶת־מִצְרַ֔יִם בְּכֹל֙ נִפְלְאֹתַ֔י אֲשֶׁ֥ר אֶֽעֱשֶׂ֖ה בְּקִרְבּ֑וֹ וְאַחֲרֵי־כֵ֖ן יְשַׁלַּ֥ח אֶתְכֶֽם׃
καὶ ἐκτείνας τὴν χεῖρα πατάξω τοὺς Αἰγυπτίους ἐν πᾶσι τοῖς θαυμασίοις μου οἷς ποιήσω ἐν αὐτοῖς, καὶ μετὰ ταῦτα ἐξαποστελεῖ ὑμᾶς.
Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0
Latin (Vulgate)
Extendam enim manum meam, et percutiam Ægyptum in cunctis mirabilibus meis, quæ facturus sum in medio eorum: post hæc dimittet vos.
Por eso, extenderé mi mano y castigaré a Egipto con todas las maravillas que haré en ese país, y después de eso el rey los dejará ir.
Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)
Empero yo extenderé mi mano, y heriré á Egipto con todas mis maravillas que haré en él, y entonces os dejará ir.
So I will stretch out My hand and strike the Egyptians with all the wonders I will perform among them. And after that, he will release you.
✦ What the text says
Summary
YHWH announces to Moses a sequence of future actions: stretching out his hand, striking Egypt with wonders, and the eventual release of the people. The verse uses a chain of sequential perfects to describe divine action, then shifts to an imperfect for the human response (Pharaoh releasing the Israelites).
Key words
- sha.lach.Ti ("I will stretch out", H7971K) — qal sequential perfect, 1st person; continues the narrative chain begun in the surrounding verses.
- hi.kei.Ti ("I will strike", H5221) — hiphil (causative) sequential perfect; the causative stem marks this as an action YHWH directly causes to happen to Egypt.
- nif.le.'o.Tai ("my wonders", H6381) — niphal participle, feminine plural construct with 1st person suffix; grammatically "the things caused to be wondrous," here nominalized as "my wonders."
- kir.Bo ("its midst", H7130G) — masculine singular noun with 3ms suffix "his/its," referring back to Mitzrayim ("Egypt", H4713) as a singular collective entity, not to a plural group of people.
- ye.sha.Lach ("he will let go", H7971K) — piel (intensive) imperfect, 3rd person singular; the subject is not named in the verse itself but is understood from context as the one who will release the people.
What the text says
The Hebrew sentence is built as a chain of three verbs marking sequence: sha.lach.Ti ("I will stretch out"), hi.kei.Ti ("I will strike"), both sequential perfects continuing prior narrative time, followed by ye.sha.Lach ("he will let go"), an imperfect marking a resulting future action. This shift in verb form (perfect chain → imperfect) marks a change of subject and a logical consequence: divine action leads to a human response. The phrase bekhol nif.le.'o.Tai ("with all my wonders") uses a construct chain—khol ("all", H3605) construct with nif.le.'o.Tai—to bind "wonders" tightly to the 1st person suffix, emphasizing these as belonging specifically to the speaker. Notably, beqirbo ("in its midst") carries a singular suffix agreeing grammatically with Mitzrayim as a place-name/collective noun, not with a plural group of inhabitants.
Differences between versions
The LXX renders Mitzrayim ("Egypt", H4713) as τοὺς Αἰγυπτίους ("the Egyptians," plural), shifting from the Hebrew's singular place-name to a plural people-group. Correspondingly, the Hebrew beqirbo ("in its midst," singular suffix) becomes ἐν αὐτοῖς ("among them," plural) in the LXX and "in medio eorum" (plural) in the Vulgate, matching their plural referent rather than the Hebrew's singular one. The Vulgate keeps "Aegyptum" singular, closer to the Hebrew, despite this plural shift in the pronoun. The SBLIBRE Spanish translation adds "el rey" ("the king") as the explicit subject of ye.sha.Lach, a specification not present in the Hebrew verb itself, which leaves the subject unstated grammatically.
This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.