Exodus 31:15

Summary

Exodus 31:15 establishes a temporal structure: six days permit work, but the seventh day carries a special status of rest dedicated to Yehovah. The verse closes with an emphatic warning about the consequence of working on that seventh day.

Key words

yeʿaseh ("it will be done", H6213A) — niphal imperfect, a passive/impersonal construction meaning work "is done" or "may be done" without specifying who performs it, contrasting with the participle used later for the violator.

Shabbat shabbaton ("sabbath of sabbath-observance", H7676 + H7677) — a construct chain doubling the root shbt ("to cease/rest"). The construct noun shabbat governs shabbaton, intensifying the idea of rest through repetition of the same root in two nominal forms.

qodesh ("a holy thing", H6944G) — noun in apposition to the preceding phrase, marking the seventh day's status as set apart, followed by la-YHWH ("to/for Yehovah"), indicating the dedication.

ha-ʿoseh ("the one doing", H6213A) — qal active participle, masculine singular, functioning as a substantive ("the doer/worker"), naming the agent responsible for the prohibited action.

mot yumat ("certainly he will be put to death", H4191) — infinitive absolute (mot) paired with the hophal imperfect (yumat) of the same root. This doubling construction intensifies the verbal action; the hophal form marks the verb as passive-causative ("he is caused to die" / "he is put to death").

What the text says

The verse divides into two halves marked by contrasting verbal forms. The first half uses the niphal imperfect yeʿaseh ("it will be done", H6213A), a passive construction that describes work happening during six days without naming an agent. The second half shifts to the qal active participle ha-ʿoseh ("the one doing", H6213A) — the same root now in an active, agent-focused form — to identify whoever performs work on the seventh day specifically.

The seventh day itself is marked by a construct chain, shabbat shabbaton ("sabbath of sabbath-observance", H7676 + H7677), stacking two nominal forms of the same root shbt. This repetition within a construct relationship is a grammatical intensification pattern in Biblical Hebrew, followed by the appositional noun qodesh ("a holy thing", H6944G) and the phrase la-YHWH ("to Yehovah", H3068G), attributing the day's set-apart status to Yehovah specifically.

The final clause employs the infinitive absolute plus finite verb pattern: mot yumat ("certainly he will be put to death", H4191). The infinitive absolute mot precedes and reinforces the finite hophal imperfect yumat, a construction that intensifies certainty or emphasis on the verbal action — here the passive/causative sense of being put to death.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders shabbat shabbaton as "σάββατα, ἀνάπαυσις ἁγία" ("sabbaths, holy rest"), splitting the Hebrew's doubled construct chain into two separate Greek nouns rather than preserving a single intensified construct phrase. The Vulgate renders it as "sabbatum est, requies sancta" ("it is a sabbath, a holy rest"), similarly separating the concept into two nominal elements rather than one construct chain. The Hebrew infinitive absolute construction mot yumat (doubling the death-root for emphasis) appears in Greek as a single finite verb, θανατωθήσεται ("he will be put to death"), and in the Vulgate as "morietur" ("he will die"), both losing the grammatical doubling present in the Hebrew.