Exodus 3:7

Summary

Yehovah declares to Moses that he has seen the affliction of his people in Egypt, heard their cry because of their taskmasters, and knows their pains. The verse combines three verbs of perception (seeing, hearing, knowing) to express a complete, direct awareness of the people's suffering.

Key words

• ra'oh ra'iti ("certainly / I have seen", H7200G) — the infinitive absolute ra'oh followed by the perfect ra'iti of the same root is a construction that intensifies the verb, emphasizing the certainty or thoroughness of the seeing.
• 'oni ("affliction of", H6040) — construct noun linked to 'ammi ("my people"), forming the phrase "affliction of my people."
• tza'akatam ("their cry of distress", H6818) — construct noun with 3rd person plural suffix, denoting a specific cry of anguish, not generic speech.
• nogesav ("his/their taskmasters", H5065) — a qal participle used substantively ("the ones pressing/driving"), in construct form, describing those who impose the affliction.
• yada'ti ("I know", H3045) — perfect form of the verb "to know," here expressing not abstract knowledge but experiential, attentive awareness of the pains (makh'ovav, H4341).

What the text says

The verse opens with the narrative va-yo'mer ("and he said," H0559), introducing Yehovah as speaker. The core of the divine speech rests on three parallel perfect verbs — ra'iti ("I have seen"), shama'ti ("I have heard"), and yada'ti ("I know") — each governing its own object marked by 'et (H0853, untranslated direct object marker). This triple structure builds a cumulative statement: seeing the 'oni ("affliction") of the people, hearing their tza'akah ("cry"), and knowing their makh'ov ("pain").

The doubling ra'oh ra'iti is grammatically distinct from the other two verbs, since it pairs an infinitive absolute with a finite perfect of the same root — a common Hebrew device to intensify or confirm the verbal action, here suggesting that the seeing is thorough or certain rather than partial. The phrase mi-pnei nogesav ("because of his/their taskmasters," H6440I) uses the construct noun pnei ("face of," here idiomatically "because of") to introduce the cause of the cry, linking the taskmasters' pressure directly to the people's distress.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the doubled Hebrew verb ra'oh ra'iti with idōn idon ("having seen, I saw"), preserving a similar intensifying doubling. The Vulgate instead uses a single verb, Vidi ("I have seen"), without reproducing the emphatic doubling found in the Hebrew and LXX. The Vulgate also renders mi-pnei nogesav ("because of his taskmasters") as propter duritiam eorum qui praesunt operibus ("because of the harshness of those who oversee the works"), introducing the word "harshness" (duritiam), which is not explicit in the Hebrew wording of this clause.