Exodus 34:5

Summary

The verse describes Yehovah descending in the cloud, positioning himself "with him" at that place, and proclaiming "in the name of Yehovah." The three verbs form a tight narrative chain, though the Hebrew leaves the referents of "with him" and the subject of the final proclamation grammatically open.

Key words

• va-yYered ("and he came down", H3381) — qal narrative verb, continuing the wayyiqtol chain that marks sequential past action; subject is Yehovah, named explicitly in the same clause.
• va-yyityatsev ("and he stood/stationed himself", H3320) — hithpael narrative verb, a reflexive stem suggesting the subject positions himself deliberately; grammatically it is 3ms, matching Yehovah as the closest stated subject, though no new subject is introduced.
• immo ("with him", H5973A + H9033) — preposition with pronominal suffix "him"; the suffix's antecedent is not restated in the verse, leaving open whether it points back to Moses (mentioned earlier in the chapter) or someone else present at the scene.
• va-yyiqra ("and he proclaimed", H7121I) — qal narrative verb, again 3ms, continuing the same unbroken chain of subjects begun with va-yYered.
• be-shem YHWH ("in/by the name of Yehovah", H8034 construct + H3068G) — construct phrase; shem ("name") is bound to YHWH, meaning the proclamation is made using or concerning the divine name itself.

What the text says

The Hebrew presents three consecutive wayyiqtol verbs — va-yYered, va-yyityatsev, va-yyiqra — each 3rd person masculine singular, forming an unbroken narrative sequence. Because Yehovah is the explicit subject of the first verb, and no new subject is introduced for the second or third verbs, the grammatical chain most naturally continues with Yehovah as the actor throughout: Yehovah comes down, Yehovah stations himself "with him" (immo) at that place, and Yehovah proclaims "by/in the name of Yehovah." The pronominal suffix in immo ("with him") does not specify who "him" is; the referent must be supplied from the broader context of the chapter, since verse 5 alone does not name Moses.

The construct phrase be-shem YHWH ties the act of proclamation directly to the divine name, but the syntax does not clarify whether this means Yehovah proclaims his own name, or whether the proclaiming party invokes the name in address. Both readings are grammatically possible from the Hebrew verbs alone.

Differences between versions

The Vulgate diverges by explicitly inserting "Moyses" as the subject of the second verb: "stetit Moyses cum eo" ("Moses stood with him"), resolving the ambiguity of immo in favor of Moses standing with Yehovah — a specification not present in the Hebrew text, which names no subject shift. The LXX (paréstē autō ekei, "he stood with him there") preserves the same 3rd-person ambiguity as the Hebrew, without naming Moses. Modern versions (BSB, RV1909, SBLIBRE) likewise keep Yehovah as the implicit subject of all three verbs, following the Hebrew's unbroken chain rather than the Vulgate's explicit identification of Moses.