Exodus 40:31

וְרָחֲצוּ מִמֶּנּוּ מֹשֶׁה וְאַהֲרֹן וּבָנָיו אֶת־יְדֵיהֶם וְאֶת־רַגְלֵיהֶֽם׃

✦ Hebrew interlinear

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✦ The same verse in five languages

Hebrew

וְרָחֲצ֣וּ מִמֶּ֔נּוּ מֹשֶׁ֖ה וְאַהֲרֹ֣ן וּבָנָ֑יו אֶת־יְדֵיהֶ֖ם וְאֶת־רַגְלֵיהֶֽם׃

Greek (Septuagint)

εἰ δὲ μὴ ἀνέβη ἡ νεφέλη, οὐκ ἀνεζεύγνυσαν ἕως ἡμέρας ἦς ἀνέβη ἡ νεφέλη.

Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0

Latin (Vulgate)

Erexit et atrium per gyrum tabernaculi et altaris, ducto in introitu ejus tentorio. Postquam omnia perfecta sunt,

Spanish

Moisés, Aarón y sus hijos se lavaban allí las manos y los pies.

Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)

Y Moisés y Aarón y sus hijos lavaban en ella sus manos y sus pies.

English

and from it Moses, Aaron, and his sons washed their hands and feet.

✦ What the text says

Summary

Exodus 40:31 states that Moses, Aaron, and Aaron's sons washed their hands and feet from the water contained in the basin mentioned in the preceding verse. The verse describes a customary or repeated washing action performed by these three parties using the water source just established.

Key words

ra.cha.Tzu ("they washed", H7364) — qal sequential perfect, third person plural; continues the narrative sequence begun earlier in the chapter and indicates a completed or habitual action performed by the named subjects.
mi.Me.nu ("from it", H4480A + H9033) — preposition with pronominal suffix "it/him," referring back to the basin (not named again here but understood from context), specifying the source of the water used.
ye.dei.Hem ("their hands", H3027G + H9028) — dual construct noun with plural suffix "their," marking the hands as a paired body part belonging jointly to Moses, Aaron, and his sons.
rag.lei.Hem ("their feet", H7272 + H9028) — dual construct noun with plural suffix "their," parallel in structure to ye.dei.Hem, marking the feet as the second paired body part washed.
u.va.Nav ("and his sons", H9002 + H1121A + H9023) — construct plural noun with conjunction and suffix "his," linking Aaron's sons to Aaron as a group sharing in the same action.

What the text says

The verse opens with the narrative vav on ra.cha.Tzu ("and they washed"), a qal sequential perfect that ties this clause directly to the prior action in the chapter (the setting up of the basin and its water). The subject of the verb is compound: mo.Sheh ("Moses"), 'a.ha.Ron ("Aaron"), and u.va.Nav ("and his sons"), joined by simple conjunctions (ve/u). Grammatically, all three parties share a single verb, indicating one collective washing action rather than three separate events.

The two direct objects, ye.dei.Hem ("their hands") and rag.lei.Hem ("their feet"), are both dual-form nouns in construct with a plural suffix, each preceded by the direct object marker 'et. The dual form marks these as paired body parts, and the plural suffix Hem ("their") distributes ownership across all three named subjects collectively rather than individually. The preposition mi.Me.nu ("from it") specifies that the washing water came from a previously mentioned source, though the noun itself is not repeated in this verse — the referent depends on the preceding context.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew text of this verse describes Moses, Aaron, and his sons washing hands and feet, matching the RV1909, SBLIBRE, and BSB translations closely. However, the LXX and Vulgate texts supplied here do not correspond to this content: the LXX passage given describes the cloud not going up and the people not moving camp, while the Vulgate passage given describes the erection of the courtyard around the tabernacle and altar. These provided LXX and Vulgate texts appear to reflect different verses within Exodus 40, a chapter where Hebrew and Greek/Latin verse numbering diverge in places.

This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.