Exodus 35:1

Summary

Moses assembles the entire congregation of the people of Israel and tells them the words that Yehovah has commanded them to do. This verse opens a new narrative section, introducing a speech in which divine instructions will be reported to the whole community.

Key words

• va-yak.Hel ("he assembled", H6950) — hiphil (causative) narrative form: Moses causes the congregation to gather; the causative stem marks him as the active agent of the assembling, not merely someone present at a gathering.
• 'a.Dat ("congregation of", H5712) — feminine singular construct, linking to be.Nei Yis.ra.'El ("sons/people of Israel", H1121G/H3478); construct chains in Hebrew show possession/belonging without a separate word for "of".
• 'E.leh ("these", H0428) — demonstrative particle opening the direct quotation; combined with ha-de.va.Rim ("the words", H1697I) it introduces the content that follows as a defined, bounded set of words.
• tzi.Vah ("he has commanded", H6680) — piel perfect: the piel (intensive) stem plus completed-aspect perfect marks this as an authoritative act already accomplished before the moment of speaking, distinct from a simple qal command.
• 'a.Sot ("to do", H6213A) — qal infinitive construct with the preposition la- ("to/for"): expresses purpose or content, "to do them," linking the commanded words to their intended execution.

What the text says

The verse divides into two clauses joined by narrative va- ("and", H9001), a construction typical of Hebrew narrative sequence where each verb form beginning with this vav indicates the next event in a chain: "and he assembled... and he said...". The first clause has Moshe as subject of the hiphil verb yak.Hel, with the direct object marked by 'et (H0853, untranslated) before kol-'a.Dat be.nei Yis.ra.'El ("all the congregation of the sons of Israel"), a stacked construct chain (kol + 'a.Dat + be.nei) that in Hebrew requires no explicit possessive words — each noun modifies the next simply by juxtaposition.

The second clause introduces direct speech with va-yo.mer ("and he said", H0559) followed by 'a.le.hem ("to them", H0413 + suffix). The quoted content begins with the demonstrative 'E.leh ha-de.va.Rim ("these are the words"), followed by a relative clause built with 'a.Sher ("which", H0834A) governing the piel perfect tzi.Vah ("he has commanded"). The subject of this commanding is Yehovah (H3068G), and the purpose infinitive la-'a.Sot 'otam ("to do them") closes the verse, with the object suffix -am ("them", H9038) referring back to ha-de.va.Rim ("the words").

Differences between versions

The LXX (Septuagint) reads εἶπεν κύριος ("the Lord said") where the Hebrew has tzi.Vah Yehovah ("Yehovah has commanded", H6680), rendering the verb of command with a verb of speech instead. The Vulgate uses jussit Dominus ("the Lord ordered"), which more closely parallels the Hebrew "commanded" than the LXX's "said."