Exodus 40:38

Summary

The verse states that the cloud of Yehovah remained over the tabernacle by day, and fire occurred at night in it, visible to the entire house of Israel throughout all their journeys. It closes the book of Exodus by describing a recurring visual marker linked to the tabernacle during Israel's travels.

Key words

• anan ("cloud of", H6051) — masculine singular construct, linking directly to Yehovah: "the cloud of Yehovah," not merely "a cloud."
• mishkan ("tabernacle", H4908) — masculine singular noun, the object over which the cloud rests, marked with the definite article ha (H9009).
• tihyeh ("it was / it would be", H1961) — qal imperfect, third person feminine, agreeing with esh ("fire", H0784), a feminine noun; the imperfect aspect suggests a recurring or ongoing state rather than a single completed event.
• 'einei ("eyes of", H5869H) — feminine dual construct, forming the idiom "in the eyes of," i.e., "in the sight of," governing "all the house of Israel."
• mas'ei ("journeyings of", H4550) — masculine plural construct with the third person plural suffix hem (H9028), "their journeys," anchoring the whole scene in the context of Israel's travels.

What the text says

The sentence is introduced by ki (H3588A), a particle that here functions as a subordinating/explanatory conjunction ("for" or "because"), connecting this verse to what precedes it as a rationale or continuation. The core structure pairs two temporal clauses: 'anan Yehovah 'al ha-mishkan yomam ("the cloud of Yehovah was over the tabernacle by day") and ve-esh tihyeh laylah bo ("and fire would be at night in it"). Only the second clause has an explicit verb, tihyeh; the first clause has no verb, following the common Hebrew pattern of verbless (nominal) clauses to express a state of being in the present or a general fact, while the imperfect tihyeh extends the same idea into a repeated pattern with more explicit ongoing aspect.

The pronominal suffix o ("it", H9033) attached to the preposition be (H9003) in bo ("in it") is grammatically ambiguous, since both 'anan ("cloud") and mishkan ("tabernacle") are masculine singular nouns and could serve as its antecedent. The Hebrew text itself does not specify which noun bo refers back to.

The final phrase, le-'einei kol beit Yisra'el be-kol mas'eihem ("in the sight of all the house of Israel, in all their journeys"), uses the construct chain kol...beit...Yisra'el to designate the totality of the Israelite community, and kol mas'eihem to generalize the statement across every stage of their travels, not a single occasion.

Differences between versions

The BSB renders bo ("in it") as "in the cloud by night," specifying the antecedent as the cloud, an interpretive choice not made explicit by the Hebrew suffix itself. The SBLIBRE similarly specifies "de noche había fuego en la nube" ("at night there was fire in the cloud"), making the same interpretive link explicit. The RV1909 instead renders bo more neutrally as "en él" ("in it"), preserving the same ambiguity found in the Hebrew text.