Exodus 3:4

Summary

The verse narrates that Yehovah saw Moses turning aside to look at the burning bush, after which God called to him by name from within the bush. Moses responds with a single-word declaration of presence, hinneni ("here am I", H2009 + H9040).

Key words

• va-yar' ("and he saw", H7200G) — qal narrative verb, marking the next event in the story chain; the subject is Yehovah (H3068G).
• sar ("he had turned aside", H5493I) — qal perfect, indicating an action already completed before the seeing took place, subordinated by ki ("that", H3588A).
• va-yiqra ("and he called", H7121I) — qal narrative verb; the subject shifts to 'Elohim ("God", H0430G), a plural-form noun used here for the deity.
• mi-tokh ("from the midst of", H8432 + H9006) — construct noun phrase governing ha-seneh ("the bush", H5572), locating the voice's source.
• hineni ("here am I", H2009 + H9040) — interjection with first-person pronominal suffix, a fixed formula of response rather than a full sentence.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence opens with va-yar' Yehovah ("and Yehovah saw"), placing Yehovah as the one who perceives Moses' action. The clause ki sar li-r'ot ("that he had turned aside to look") uses the qal perfect sar to describe an action prior to the seeing, followed by the infinitive li-r'ot ("to look", H7200G) with the preposition li ("to", H9005), expressing purpose — Moses turned aside for the purpose of looking.

The narrative then shifts subject: va-yiqra 'elav 'Elohim ("and God called to him"), where the caller is named 'Elohim, distinct from the earlier Yehovah who did the seeing. The location of the call is specified by the construct phrase mi-tokh ha-seneh ("from the midst of the bush"), a precise spatial marker built from tokh ("middle of", H8432) governing the definite noun ha-seneh ("the bush", H5572).

The name Mosheh ("Moses", H4872) appears twice in direct address, a repetition without an intervening particle in the Hebrew. Moses' answer is not a full clause but the single interjection hineni, combining the presentative hinneh ("here", H2009) with the first-person suffix -ni ("I/me", H9040), functioning as a fixed idiom of readiness or attention rather than a descriptive statement.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew text names the one who sees as Yehovah (H3068G) and the one who calls as 'Elohim (H0430G) — two different names for the same referent within one verse. The LXX renders both occurrences with the single Greek term kyrios ("Lord"), collapsing the Hebrew's two distinct names into one. The Vulgate follows a similar pattern, using Dominus ("Lord") for the seeing subject and leaving the caller unnamed in that clause (vocavit eum, "he called him"). The Spanish RV1909 preserves the Hebrew distinction, using "Jehová" for the seeing and "Dios" for the calling, matching the two Hebrew names.