Exodus 4:23
וָאֹמַר אֵלֶיךָ שַׁלַּח אֶת־בְּנִי וְיַֽעַבְדֵנִי וַתְּמָאֵן לְשַׁלְּחוֹ הִנֵּה אָנֹכִי הֹרֵג אֶת־בִּנְךָ בְּכֹרֶֽךָ׃
✦ Hebrew interlinear
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✦ The same verse in five languages
וָאֹמַ֣ר אֵלֶ֗יךָ שַׁלַּ֤ח אֶת־בְּנִי֙ וְיַֽעַבְדֵ֔נִי וַתְּמָאֵ֖ן לְשַׁלְּח֑וֹ הִנֵּה֙ אָנֹכִ֣י הֹרֵ֔ג אֶת־בִּנְךָ֖ בְּכֹרֶֽךָ׃
εἶπα δέ σοι Ἐξαπόστειλον τὸν λαόν μου ἵνα μοι λατρεύσῃ· εἰ μὲν οὖν μὴ βούλει ἐξαποστεῖλαι αὐτούς, δρᾶ οὖν, ἐγὼ ἀποκτέννω τὸν υἱόν σου τὸν πρωτότοκον.
Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0
Latin (Vulgate)
Dixi tibi: Dimitte filium meum ut serviat mihi; et noluisti dimittere eum: ecce ego interficiam filium tuum primogenitum.
y yo te he ordenado que dejes ir a mi hijo para que me adore. Pero como te has negado a dejarlo ir, voy a quitarle la vida a tu hijo primogénito”.
Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)
Ya te he dicho que dejes ir á mi hijo, para que me sirva, mas no has querido dejarlo ir: he aquí yo voy á matar á tu hijo, tu primogénito.
and I told you to let My son go so that he may worship Me. But since you have refused to let him go, behold, I will kill your firstborn son!’”
✦ What the text says
Summary
This verse reports a divine command relayed through Moses to Pharaoh: God says he told Pharaoh to let "my son" go so he could serve him, but Pharaoh refused — so now God is about to kill Pharaoh's own firstborn son. The verse frames a direct cause-and-effect between refusal and consequence.
Key words
- sha.Lach ("let go", H7971) — piel imperative, a forceful directive (piel intensifies the basic sense of "sending away").
- ya.'av.De.ni ("he may serve", H5647) — qal imperfect with prefixed ve, expressing purpose ("so that he may serve me") rather than a separate command.
- te.ma.'En ("you refused", H3985) — piel narrative form, continuing the story sequence ("and then you refused").
- ho.Reg ("about to kill", H2026) — qal participle, not a finite future verb; participles in Hebrew narrate an action as ongoing or imminent, giving a sense of "here I am, killing" rather than a simple prediction.
- hi.Neh ("here!", H2009) — interjection that draws attention to the imminent action introduced by the participle that follows.
What the text says
The verse is built as a chain of narrative-vav clauses (va.'oMar, vate.ma.'En) that recount past speech and past refusal, followed by a shift into direct, present-tense drama marked by hinneh + participle (horeg). This grammatical shift from narrative past into participial "presentness" is significant: the Hebrew does not say "I will kill" as a simple future statement but frames the killing as already underway or imminent at the moment of speaking, heightened by hinneh ("here!").
The purpose clause ve.ya'avdeni ("so that he may serve me") is grammatically distinct from the imperative shalach ("let go") — the sending and the serving are presented as sequential actions, not as one merged command. The double occurrence of the construct noun ben ("son", H1121A) — once for "my son" (v.23a) and once for "your son" (v.23b, bin.kha) — sets up a structural parallel between the demanded son and the son that will be taken, reinforced by the added epithet be.kho.Re.kha ("your firstborn", H1060).
Differences between versions
The Hebrew text has beni ("my son", H1121A, singular) as the object of the release, referring to a singular figure. The LXX renders this instead as τὸν λαόν μου ("my people"), a collective term, and later uses the plural pronoun αὐτούς ("them") where the Hebrew has the singular suffix oto ("him", embedded in sha.le.Ch-o). The Vulgate follows the Hebrew's singular reference with filium meum ("my son"). The Hebrew participle horeg ("about to kill/killing") contrasts with the Vulgate's finite future tense interficiam ("I will kill") and the LXX's present-tense ἀποκτέννω ("I kill"), each version handling the immediacy of the Hebrew participle differently.
This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.