Exodus 33:22
וְהָיָה בַּעֲבֹר כְּבֹדִי וְשַׂמְתִּיךָ בְּנִקְרַת הַצּוּר וְשַׂכֹּתִי כַפִּי עָלֶיךָ עַד־עָבְרִֽי׃
✦ Hebrew interlinear
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✦ The same verse in five languages
וְהָיָה֙ בַּעֲבֹ֣ר כְּבֹדִ֔י וְשַׂמְתִּ֖יךָ בְּנִקְרַ֣ת הַצּ֑וּר וְשַׂכֹּתִ֥י כַפִּ֛י עָלֶ֖יךָ עַד־עָבְרִֽי׃
ἡνίκα δ' ἄν παρέλθῃ μου ἡ δόξα, καὶ θήσω σε εἰς ὀπὴν τῆς πέτρας, καὶ σκεπάσω τῇ χειρί μου ἐπὶ σὲ ἕως ὃν παρέλθω·
Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0
Latin (Vulgate)
Cumque transibit gloria mea, ponam te in foramine petræ, et protegam dextera mea, donec transeam:
Cuando pase mi gloria, te meteré en una grieta de la roca y te cubriré con mi mano hasta que yo haya pasado.
Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)
Y será que, cuando pasare mi gloria, yo te pondré en una hendidura de la peña, y te cubriré con mi mano hasta que haya pasado:
and when My glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft of the rock and cover you with My hand until I have passed by.
✦ What the text says
Summary
The verse describes a sequence of divine actions tied to a moment when God's kavod ("glory", H3519) passes by: the deity will place the addressee in a rock cleft and cover him with his hand until the passing is complete.
Key words
- ha.Yah ("it will be", H1961) — qal sequential perfect; opens the verse as the next link in a chain of narrated future actions, giving the sense "and it will happen that...".
- ke.vo.D-i ("my glory", H3519 + H9020) — construct noun with pronominal suffix; "glory" is bound to "my", producing "glory of me" = "my glory", the subject of the passing.
- nik.Rat ha-Tzur ("cleft of the rock", H5366 + H6697H) — construct chain: "cleft" is grammatically bound to "the rock", so the phrase means "the cleft belonging to the rock", a specific location.
- sa.ko.Ti ("I will hold/cover", H5526E) — qal sequential perfect, first person; continues the chain of actions the speaker performs.
- kha.P-i ("my palm", H3709G + H9020) — construct noun with suffix, "palm of me" = "my hand/palm", the instrument of covering.
What the text says
The Hebrew builds a chain of four sequential perfect verbs (ha.Yah, sam.Ti, sa.ko.Ti, and implicitly the initial action) linked by the narrative ve ("and", H9001), a construction typical of Biblical Hebrew for narrating a sequence of future events as if reporting what will unfold step by step: "and it will be... and I will put... and I will hold." This chaining gives the verse a procedural, almost stage-by-stage quality — each ve-perfect picks up where the previous one left off.
The temporal frame is set by two infinitive constructions with prepositions: ba-'a.Vor ("when passes by", H5674A with H9003) at the start, and 'ad 'a.ve.R-i ("until I have passed by", H5674A with H5704 and H9040) at the end. Both use the same verbal root (H5674A, "to pass"), so the verse is framed by the beginning and end of the same action — the passing of the glory — with the protective placement and covering happening entirely within that window.
The two construct chains — ke.vo.D-i ("glory of me") and nik.Rat ha-Tzur ("cleft of the rock") — show the Hebrew's typical way of expressing possession and specification without a separate preposition: nouns are bound directly to what follows them. Similarly, kha.P-i ("palm of me") uses the same construct-plus-suffix pattern to specify whose hand performs the covering.
Differences between versions
The LXX renders kha.P-i ("my palm", H3709G) as tē cheiri mou ("my hand"), a slightly broader term than the Hebrew's specific "palm." The Vulgate similarly uses dextera mea ("my right hand"), adding a specification of laterality (right hand) that is not present in the Hebrew, which only specifies kaph ("palm/hand", H3709G) without indicating which hand.
This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.