Exodus 32:12

Summary

The verse presents Moses' argument to God: a rhetorical question about how Egypt would interpret the destruction of Israel, followed by two imperatives asking God to turn from anger and relent. The Hebrew structure moves from hypothetical Egyptian speech to direct appeal.

Key words

• lamah ("why?", H4100) — an interrogative pronoun opening a rhetorical question that anticipates a negative outcome, framing the entire argument as a warning about perception.
• ra'ah ("evil", H7451I) — a feminine singular noun describing the intent attributed to God's action in the phrase be-ra'ah hotzi'am ("with evil he brought them out"), appearing first as the alleged motive for the exodus.
• hotzi'a ("he brought out", H3318H) — hiphil (causative) perfect, marking a completed causative action: someone caused them to go out, with the causative stem emphasizing agency.
• shuv ("turn", H7725I) — qal imperative, a direct command form addressed to God, calling for a reversal of direction/action.
• hinnachem ("relent", H5162H) — niphal imperative, a passive/reflexive stem verb; the niphal form here conveys a change in one's own disposition rather than an action performed on an external object.
• ra'ah ("harm", H7451C) — the same noun as above but here designating the harm/disaster under consideration for the people, in the phrase al-ha-ra'ah le-ammekha ("concerning the harm to your people").

What the text says

The verse opens with lamah yomeru mitzrayim le'mor ("why will Egypt say, saying"), using the interrogative lamah (H4100) with an imperfect verb yomeru (H0559), which signals a future/ongoing hypothetical speech act. The infinitive le'mor (H0559) introduces the quoted content, a common construction for reported speech in Biblical Hebrew.

The quoted Egyptian speech contains three infinitives in sequence — la-harog ("to kill", H2026), u-le-khallotam ("and to make an end of them", H3615H, piel), and implicitly the purpose clause extending to me-'al penei ha-'adamah ("from upon the face of the ground", H6440J construct + H0127I). The piel stem of khallotam intensifies the action beyond simple killing, suggesting total consumption or annihilation, in contrast to the qal harog.

The second half shifts to direct imperatives: shuv (H7725I, qal) and hinnachem (H5162H, niphal), both second-person masculine singular commands directed at the addressee. The niphal form of hinnachem is grammatically passive/reflexive, differing structurally from the qal imperative shuv, though both function as commands in this context. The noun ra'ah (H7451) appears twice with different senses tracked by different Strong entries (H7451I "evil" describing motive, H7451C "harm" describing outcome), though the Hebrew consonantal form is identical in both occurrences.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders mitzrayim ("Egypt", H4713, a place name) as hoi Aigyptioi ("the Egyptians", a people), shifting the referent from the nation as entity to its inhabitants. The LXX also translates hinnachem with hileōs genou ("be merciful/gracious"), a phrase differing from the reflexive/passive nuance of the Hebrew niphal "relent." The Vulgate uses quiescat ira tua ("let your anger rest") for shuv me-charon appekha, and esto placabilis ("be appeasable") for hinnachem, both interpretive renderings rather than literal equivalents of the Hebrew verb stems.