Exodus 4:21

Summary

Yehovah tells Moses that when he returns to Egypt he must perform before Pharaoh all the wonders entrusted to him, but Yehovah himself will act on Pharaoh's heart so that he will not release the people. The verse combines a command to Moses with a divine statement about the outcome that will follow it.

Key words

• bekhetteka (from lekhet, "going", H1980G) — infinitive construct with pronominal suffix, "in your going"; forms a temporal clause with the following infinitive.
• lashuv ("return", H7725G) — a second infinitive construct stacked onto the first, producing the doubled phrase "in your going to return."
• sam'ti ("I have put", H7760H) — qal perfect, marking an action already completed by Yehovah before the moment of speaking (the wonders were placed in Moses' hand beforehand).
• achazzeq ("I will make strong", H2388G) — piel imperfect of the root meaning "to be strong/firm," here in the causative-intensive stem: "I will make [his heart] strong/firm," referring to Pharaoh's heart.
• yeshallach ("he will let go", H7971H) — piel imperfect, negated by lo' ("not", H3808), describing Pharaoh's future refusal to release the people.

What the text says

The sentence opens with the narrative verb va-yo'mer ("and he said", H0559) introducing direct speech from YHWH (H3068G) to Mosheh (H4872). The temporal clause is built from two infinitives in sequence, bekhetteka ("in your going") followed by lashuv ("to return") with the directional -mitzraymah ("toward Egypt", H4714G plus H9011), literally "in your going to return toward Egypt." This double infinitival construction emphasizes the movement back to Egypt before the imperative re'eh ("see", H7200G) is given.

The imperative re'eh opens the command proper, followed by the object kol-ha-mofetim ("all the wonders", H3605 + H4159) qualified by the relative clause asher samti ve-yadekha ("which I have put in your hand"), using the qal perfect sam'ti to mark a prior divine act. The narrative then shifts with the sequential perfect va-'asita ("and you will do", H6213A), continuing the force of the imperative into a future action: performing the wonders lifnei Par'oh ("before Pharaoh", H6440G + H6547J).

The final clause pivots to Yehovah as subject: va-'ani achazzeq et-libbo ("and I will make his heart strong"), using the piel imperfect of chazaq — a causative/intensive form built on the root for "strength" or "firmness" rather than a root meaning "hard" in the sense of stubbornness. The result clause ve-lo yeshallach et-ha'am ("and he will not send away the people") uses the piel imperfect of shalach, negated, to state the anticipated refusal.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders sam'ti be-yadekha ("I have put in your hand", singular) with the plural ἐν ταῖς χερσίν σου ("in your hands"). For the verb achazzeq ("I will make strong", H2388G), both the LXX (σκληρυνῶ, "I will harden") and the Vulgate (indurabo, "I will harden") use verbs built on the semantic field of hardness rather than strength, differing from the Hebrew root's core sense of firmness/strength. The Vulgate condenses the doubled Hebrew infinitives bekhetteka lashuv into a single participial phrase, revertenti in Aegyptum ("to him returning to Egypt"), where the LXX preserves two verbal forms, πορευομένου... καὶ ἀποστρέφοντος ("going... and returning").