Exodus 4:22

Summary

This verse instructs Moses on what to say to Pharaoh: Yehovah declares Israel to be his firstborn son. The sentence is a direct message formula followed by a nominal statement identifying the nation with the status of firstborn.

Key words

• 'a.mar.Ta ("you will say", H0559) — qal sequential perfect, continuing the narrative chain from previous instructions; the "you" refers to Moses.
• koh ("thus", H3541) — introduces direct speech, the standard messenger formula preceding a quoted declaration.
• Yah.weh ("Yehovah", H3068G) — the divine name, subject of the verb 'a.Mar ("he says", H0559).
• be.N...i ("my son", H1121A + H9020) — construct noun with pronominal suffix, literally "son of me," placed in construct chain with the following word.
• ve.kho.R...i ("my firstborn", H1060 + H9020) — construct noun with pronominal suffix, "firstborn of me," standing in apposition/construct relation to be.N...i and followed by Yis.ra.'El.

What the text says

The verse opens with a narrative vav attached to 'a.mar.Ta, marking continuation of a sequence of instructions given to Moses — "and you will say." This is followed by the messenger formula koh 'a.Mar Yah.weh ("thus says Yehovah"), a fixed construction that introduces reported divine speech. After this formula, the quoted statement itself contains no explicit verb: it is a nominal (verbless) clause consisting of be.N...i ("son of me"), ve.kho.R...i ("firstborn of me"), and Yis.ra.'El ("Israel"). In Hebrew, both be.N...i and ve.kho.R...i appear in construct form with the first-person pronominal suffix, and Yis.ra.'El stands as the final element, syntactically functioning as the subject that these two construct terms describe. The absence of a copular verb ("is") is typical of Hebrew nominal clauses; the relationship between "son," "firstborn," and "Israel" must be supplied by the reader according to word order and apposition.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew word order places be.N...i ("my son") and ve.kho.R...i ("my firstborn") before Yis.ra.'El, with no explicit verb "to be." The LXX renders this as Υἱὸς πρωτότοκός μου Ἰσραήλ ("son, firstborn of mine, Israel"), preserving a similar word order without an explicit "is." The Vulgate follows this same order: "Filius meus primogenitus Israël" ("my firstborn son, Israel"). The RV1909 and SBLIBRE Spanish translations reverse the order, placing "Israel" first ("Israel es mi hijo, mi primogénito" / "Israel is my son, my firstborn"), and supply the verb "es" ("is") — a grammatical element not present in the Hebrew, Greek, or Latin, which instead present the phrase as a verbless nominal clause.