Exodus 4:18

Summary

Moses leaves Jethro's household and returns to him, asking permission to go back to Egypt to see whether his kinsmen are still alive. Jethro responds with a formula of dismissal, "go in peace."

Key words

• yashov ("he returned", H7725G) — qal narrative form of the root for "return," marking the sequence of action after Moses "went" (yelekh, H1980G).
• choteno ("his father-in-law", H2859A) — participial noun in construct with the pronominal suffix o ("his"), literally "the one who is father-in-law of him," identifying Jethro's relation to Moses.
• 'elekhah na ("let me go, please", H1980G + H4994) — cohortative-type infinitival form combined with the particle na, softening the request into a polite plea rather than a flat statement.
• achai ("my brothers", H0251G) — plural noun in construct with the suffix i ("my"), "brothers of me," referring to Moses' kin in Egypt.
• ha'odam chayyim ("are they still alive", H5750 + H2416A) — the interrogative particle ha attached to 'od ("still") with the suffix m ("their"), followed by the adjective chayyim ("living"), forming the yes/no question "are they still living?"

What the text says

The verse is built as a chain of narrative vav-forms — yelekh ("he went"), yashov ("he returned"), yomer ("he said") — each marking sequential action: Moses goes, returns to Jethro, and speaks. This chain structure is typical of Hebrew narrative prose, where the vav-prefixed verb forms carry the storyline forward without needing separate connective words like "then" in English.

Moses' request uses two paired first-person forms, 'elekhah ("let me go") and 'ashuvah ("I may return"), both marked with the particle na softening the first as a request. The purpose clause that follows, introduced by ve'er'eh ("and I may see," H7200G), is grammatically dependent on the preceding request — Moses states the goal of his journey (to see) using the same imperfect-with-vav construction that signals continuation of intention. The embedded question ha'odam chayyim is formed with the interrogative ha fixed directly to the word "still" plus a possessive suffix meaning "their," a construction where a question particle and a pronoun are compressed onto a single word, a feature not visible in translations that render it simply as "if they are still alive."

Jethro's reply, lekh leshalom ("go to peace"), uses the imperative lekh ("go") followed by the preposition le ("to") plus shalom ("peace"), a set phrase of dismissal.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders choteno ("his father-in-law") with the Greek term for "his relative by marriage" (γαμβρόν), and translates Jethro's closing words as "go, being in health" (Βάδιζε ὑγιαίνων) rather than a term matching shalom ("peace") directly. The LXX also adds a sentence about the death of the king of Egypt not present in the Hebrew text supplied here. The Vulgate follows the Hebrew structure more closely, rendering lekh leshalom as "vade in pace" ("go in peace").