Exodus 34:6

Summary

The verse narrates that Yehovah passed before an unnamed subject ("his face") and proclaimed his own name twice, followed by a series of attributes describing his character: compassion, graciousness, patience, and covenant loyalty joined with faithfulness.

Key words

• ya'avor ("he passed by", H5674A) — qal narrative verb, third person masculine singular, continuing the story sequence ("and then he passed").
• panav ("his face", H6440G) — construct plural noun with pronominal suffix "his"; the preposition 'al ("on", H5921A) governs it, giving "on/before his face."
• rachum ("compassionate", H7349) and chanun ("gracious", H2587) — two masculine singular adjectives joined by the conjunction ve ("and", H9002), both directly describing El ("a God", H0410G).
• erekh ("long of", H0750) — adjective in construct state, meaning it must attach to the following noun appayim ("anger", H0639G, grammatically dual, literally "nostrils/anger-pair") to form the phrase "long of anger" (i.e., "slow to anger").
• chesed ("covenant loyalty", H2617A) and 'emet ("faithfulness", H0571G) — the first is governed by rav ("great of", H7227A, construct), producing "great of covenant loyalty," then joined by ve to 'emet.

What the text says

The verse opens with two narrative-vav verbs (va-ya'avor, va-yiqra) that advance the storyline: Yehovah "passed by" and then "proclaimed." The phrase 'al-panav ("on his face") uses a construct noun with a suffix; the referent of "his" is not specified within this word-by-word data, so the text itself only indicates a possessive "his face" without naming whose face.

The proclamation itself consists of the divine name Yehovah repeated twice, followed by El ("a God") plus a chain of adjectives. Hebrew here relies heavily on construct-state adjectives (erekh, rav) that require a following noun to complete their meaning: erekh appayim literally joins "long" with the dual noun "nostrils/anger," and rav chesed joins "great" with "covenant loyalty" (chesed). This construct chaining is a feature of Hebrew that does not carry over directly into English adjective-noun translations like "slow to anger" or "abounding in loving devotion." The final term, 'emet ("faithfulness"), is a feminine singular noun connected by ve to chesed, forming a common word-pair in Biblical Hebrew rather than two isolated qualities.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders rachum and chanun as οἰκτίρμων and ἐλεήμων, and translates erekh appayim as μακρόθυμος ("long-suffering"), and rav chesed as πολυέλεος ("of much mercy"), collapsing the construct pairs into single Greek adjectives. The Vulgate adds "Dominator" before "Domine Deus," a title not present in the Hebrew word list, and renders chesed as "multae miserationis" ("of much compassion") rather than a covenant-loyalty term. The Hebrew repeats the name Yehovah twice with no added title, while both the LXX and Vulgate insert ho theos / "Deus" between the repetitions.