Exodus 32:5

Summary

Exodus 32:5 narrates four consecutive actions by Aaron: he saw (something), built an altar, called out, and made a proclamation about a festival for Yehovah "tomorrow." The verse is built entirely on chained narrative verb forms typical of Hebrew storytelling.

Key words

• va-yiven ("and he built", H1129) — qal narrative form; continues the chain of sequential actions ("and then he built...").
• miz.Beach ("altar", H4196) — masculine singular noun, the object built by Aaron.
• le.fa.Nay ("before", H6440G) — masculine plural noun in construct with the pronominal suffix -o ("his/its"); literally "to the face of it/him," an idiom for "in front of."
• chag ("festival", H2282) — masculine singular noun, head of a verbless nominal clause with no copula ("is/will be") supplied in the Hebrew text itself.
• va-yiqra ("and he called", H7121I) — qal narrative form, repeating the subject Aharon (H0175) explicitly for the second time in the verse.

What the text says

The verse consists of four narrative vav-consecutive verbs — va-yar ("he saw"), va-yiven ("he built"), va-yiqra ("he called"), va-yomar ("he said") — each introduced by the narrative vav (H9001), which chains events as sequential ("and then... and then..."). Aaron is named as subject twice, once implicitly carried through the first two verbs and again explicitly before va-yiqra, a repetition that in Hebrew narrative often marks a shift or renewed emphasis on the actor.

The phrase le-fanav ("before it/him") uses a construct noun with a third-person masculine singular suffix. The Hebrew text does not specify the object of this suffix within the verse itself — it says only "before it," not "before the calf." Any identification of the referent depends on the preceding context, not on this verse's wording.

The final clause, chag la-YHWH machar ("a festival to Yehovah, tomorrow"), is a nominal sentence: noun + prepositional phrase + adverb, with no verb "to be" present in the Hebrew. The gloss "[will be]" is supplied to render the clause smoothly in English, but the Hebrew leaves the copula unstated.

Differences between versions

The Vulgate renders the final clause as "Cras sollemnitas Domini est," inserting the verb "est" ("is"), where the Hebrew has no explicit copula. The Vulgate also adds "præconis voce" ("with a herald's voice") to describe the calling, a descriptive expansion not present in the Hebrew verbs yiqra ("he called") and yomar ("he said"). The LXX uses ἐκήρυξεν ("proclaimed," in the sense of a herald's announcement) for yiqra, similarly framing the act as a formal proclamation, a nuance not inherent in the plain Hebrew verb "to call." Both the LXX (κατέναντι αὐτοῦ) and Vulgate (coram eo) preserve the same ambiguity as the Hebrew le-fanav — "before it/him" — without naming the referent explicitly.