Exodus 3:6

Summary

The verse records a divine self-identification followed by Moses' reaction: the speaker declares himself the God of Moses' father and of the three patriarchs, and Moses covers his face out of fear of looking at ha-Elohim ("the God", H0430G).

Key words

• 'a.no.Khi ("I", H0595) — independent personal pronoun, giving emphatic weight to the self-identification ("I [myself] am...").
• 'e.lo.Hei ("God of", H0430G) — construct plural form of Elohim, repeated four times in construct chains, each time linking the noun to a following name (father, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob).
• i.yas.Ter ("he hid", H5641) — hiphil narrative verb (causative stem), meaning Moses caused his own face to be hidden, i.e., actively covered it.
• ya.Re' ("he was afraid", H3372G) — qal perfect, marking a completed state of fear that explains the preceding action.
• ha.Bit ("looking", H5027) — hiphil infinitive construct, functioning as a verbal noun after the preposition me ("from"), giving the sense "from looking."

What the text says

The verse divides into two clauses. The first is a speech introduced by va-yo.mer ("and he said", H0559), a standard narrative wayyiqtol form that advances the story. The content of the speech uses the pronoun 'a.no.Khi followed by four uses of the construct noun 'e.lo.Hei, each governing a different genitive: 'a.Vi.kha ("your father", H0001G + suffix), 'av.ra.Ham (H0085), yitz.Chak (H3327), and ya.'a.Ko (H3290, with the conjunction ve prefixed). This repetition of the construct form rather than a single shared genitive phrase gives each patriarch's relationship to Elohim its own separate grammatical unit, rather than treating them as a single collective group.

The second clause shifts to Moses' action, introduced by another narrative va-form, i.yas.Ter, a hiphil (causative) verb: Moses is the causal agent who hides his own pa.Na ("face", H6440H, construct plural with 3ms suffix "his"). The reason is given by the subordinating particle ki ("for", H3588A) followed by ya.Re', a qal perfect verb denoting a completed state ("he had become afraid" / "he was afraid"). The infinitive construct ha.Bit ("looking", H5027), governed by the preposition me ("from", H9006), expresses the object of the fear: fear "from looking," i.e., fear of the act of looking, directed 'el ("to", H0413) ha-'E.lo.Him ("the God", H0430G with definite article), the same word used earlier for "God of the fathers," now definite and singular in reference to the immediate presence.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew verb i.yas.Ter (hiphil of H5641, "he hid") describes Moses actively hiding his face. The LXX renders this with ἀπέστρεψεν ("he turned away") applied to τὸ πρόσωπον αὐτοῦ ("his face"), a different verbal image (turning versus concealing). The Vulgate's abscondit ("he hid") more closely parallels the Hebrew sense of concealment. Additionally, the LXX and Vulgate both render the four Hebrew constructs with 'e.lo.Hei ("God of") as coordinated phrases with "and" (καὶ θεὸς / Deus... et Deus), producing an explicitly listed series, while the Hebrew's repeated construct nouns appose the names without needing conjunctions except before the final one (ve, "and", before Jacob).