Exodus 33:21

Summary

YHWH speaks to Moses, announcing the existence of "a place" beside him and instructing that Moses will take his stand on "the rock." The verse is short, built on a nominal clause followed by a verb in the niphal stem, and functions as a transition into the following divine self-revelation scene.

Key words

• hinneh ("there!", H2009) — an interjection that draws attention to what follows, introducing the nominal clause "a place is with me" without any verb.
• maqom ("a place", H4725) — masculine singular noun, unmarked by the definite article, functioning as the subject of the interjected clause.
• 'itti ("with me", H0854 + 1cs suffix) — preposition bearing a pronominal suffix, locating the "place" in proximity to the speaker.
• nitzavta ("you will stand", H5324) — niphal stem, sequential perfect form (vav + perfect continuing the narrative sequence begun by va-yomer); the niphal conveys a reflexive/positional sense — the subject stations or presents himself — rather than a plain active "stand."
• ha-tzur ("the rock", H6697H) — masculine singular noun with definite article, marking a specific, identifiable rock rather than any generic stone.

What the text says

The verse opens with the narrative formula va-yomer Yehovah ("and Yehovah said"), the standard vav-consecutive construction that advances the story by introducing direct speech. What follows inside the speech is not a single flowing sentence but two distinct grammatical units. The first, hinneh maqom itti, is a verbless (nominal) clause: hinneh points to the existence of maqom ("a place"), and itti ("with me") locates it relative to the speaker. Because Hebrew nominal clauses lack a copula, the "is" in translations such as "there is a place" is supplied by the receiving language, not present in the Hebrew text itself.

The second unit, ve-nitzavta al ha-tzur, uses the vav plus perfect (ve-nitzavta) in its sequential function, continuing the same time-line as the preceding va-yomer. Because the verb is niphal, the action carries a middle/reflexive nuance — the subject positions himself — rather than describing someone else placing him there. The phrase closes with al ha-tzur, "on the rock," where the definite article specifies a particular rock already implicit in the discourse context, not just any rock surface.

Differences between versions

The LXX replaces the divine name Yehovah with Κύριος ("Lord"), a standard substitution not reflecting a distinct Hebrew reading. The Vulgate adds iterum ("again") and inquit ("he said") as interpretive insertions absent from the Hebrew's single verb va-yomer. Both LXX (στήσῃ) and Vulgate (stabis) render nitzavta with a plain future "you will stand," which does not carry the niphal's reflexive/positional coloring visible in the Hebrew stem. Modern translations vary further: some render the form as a future statement ("you are to stand"), others as an imperative ("párate," "stand!"), reflecting different choices for how to handle the sequential perfect in translation.