Exodus 40:37

Summary

The verse states a conditional rule governing Israel's travel: when the cloud ('anan, H6051) did not rise, the people did not depart. Their movement remained suspended until the specific day the cloud lifted, marked by an infinitive form referring back to the same event.

Key words

• 'im ("if", H0518A) — introduces a conditional clause, structuring the whole verse as a dependent condition governing the action of "not setting out."
• ye'aleh ("it was taken up", H5927H) — niphal imperfect, a passive/reflexive form indicating the cloud undergoes the action of rising rather than performing it actively; imperfect aspect marks it as an ongoing or repeated possibility.
• he'anan ("the cloud", H6051) — definite noun, marking a specific, previously introduced cloud rather than a generic reference.
• yis'u ("they set out", H5265) — qal imperfect plural, describing the people's habitual or potential action of departing, negated here by lo' (H3808).
• he'aloto ("was taken up", H5927H) — niphal infinitive with 3rd person suffix ("it"), from the same root as ye'aleh, forming a temporal clause ("until the day of its being taken up") that closes the sentence by echoing the opening verb.

What the text says

The verse is built as a conditional-temporal structure in two parts. The first clause, introduced by ve'im lo' ("and if not"), sets up the condition: the cloud (he'anan) "was not taken up" (ye'aleh, niphal imperfect). The niphal form indicates that the cloud is the recipient of the rising action — it is lifted, rather than lifting itself by its own agency in an active sense — though the passive/reflexive niphal can carry either nuance depending on context. The second clause states the consequence: "they did not set out" (lo' yis'u, qal imperfect), a straightforward active verb describing the people's own action of departing.

The final phrase, 'ad yom he'aloto ("until the day of its being taken up"), uses the same verbal root (H5927H) as the opening condition, but now in infinitive form with a pronominal suffix ("its taking-up"). This creates a grammatical echo: the verse opens and closes with the same root describing the cloud's rising, framing the entire verse around this single recurring event. The construct relationship in yom he'aloto ("day of its being-taken-up") ties the temporal marker directly to the infinitive action, rather than treating "day" and "rising" as separate ideas.

No divergence in verbal aspect is lost in translation here — both instances of H5927H are consistently passive/reflexive in force.