Exodus 32:11

Summary

Exodus 32:11 opens with Moses "entreating the face of" YHWH his God, then quotes his direct speech: a rhetorical question asking why YHWH's anger burns against the people he brought out of Egypt with great power and a strong hand. The verse frames Moses' intervention as both an act (the piel verb) and a spoken appeal.

Key words

• yeChal ("he entreated", H2470B) — piel stem of a root meaning to weaken/soften; here intensive, describing an act of pacifying or appeasing, syntactically opening the narrative chain with the vav.
• penei ("face of", H6440L) — masculine plural construct; forms the idiom "the face of YHWH," the object that Moses "entreats."
• yecheReh ("it burns", H2734) — qal imperfect, expressing an action presented as ongoing/future ("does/will it burn"), governing the rhetorical question introduced by mah ("why", H4100).
• 'apKha ("your anger/nose", H0639G) — masculine singular construct with 2ms suffix; literally "nose," idiomatically "anger," the subject of the burning.
• hotzeTa ("you brought out", H3318H) — hiphil perfect, causative and completed, describing YHWH's past act of extraction from Egypt as the basis for the appeal.

What the text says

The verse is built on two narrative verbs joined by the vav-consecutive pattern (va-yeChal... va-yoMer, "and he entreated... and he said"), a standard structure marking sequential action: first Moses' approach ("entreating the face of YHWH his God"), then his speech. The first clause uses the idiom penei YHWH ("the face of YHWH", H6440L + H3068G), an object-marked construction ('et) that does not literally mean "to speak to a face" but functions as a set phrase for approaching or appeasing a deity.

The speech itself is framed as a question with lamah ("why", H4100) plus the imperfect yecheReh (H2734), which keeps the burning of anger grammatically open — neither strictly present nor future, allowing the question to challenge an anger that might still be averted. The construct chain 'ap-kha be-'amme-kha ("your anger against your people") ties the anger directly to the people via the preposition be (H9003). The final clause pairs two prepositional phrases, be-koach gadol ("with great power", H3581B + H1419A) and u-ve-yad chazakah ("and with a strong hand", H3027H + H2389), both modifying the perfect verb hotzeTa (H3318H), which anchors the appeal in a completed past act.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders va-yeChal... 'et-penei YHWH as ἐδεήθη Μωυσῆς ἔναντι κυρίου ("Moses besought before the Lord"), dropping the literal "face" idiom present in the Hebrew penei (H6440L). The Vulgate's orabat ("was praying," imperfect) presents the act as durative rather than the single completed narrative action suggested by the Hebrew vav-consecutive form. In the final phrase, the LXX translates yad chazakah ("strong hand", H3027H/H2389) as τῷ βραχίονι σου τῷ ὑψηλῷ ("your uplifted arm"), substituting the image of an arm for the Hebrew's "hand."