Exodus 5:14

וַיֻּכּוּ שֹֽׁטְרֵי בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל אֲשֶׁר־שָׂמוּ עֲלֵהֶם נֹגְשֵׂי פַרְעֹה לֵאמֹר מַדּוּעַ לֹא כִלִּיתֶם חָקְכֶם לִלְבֹּן כִּתְמוֹל שִׁלְשֹׁם גַּם־תְּמוֹל גַּם־הַיּֽוֹם׃

✦ Hebrew interlinear

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✦ The same verse in five languages

Hebrew

וַיֻּכּ֗וּ שֹֽׁטְרֵי֙ בְּנֵ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל אֲשֶׁר־שָׂ֣מוּ עֲלֵהֶ֔ם נֹגְשֵׂ֥י פַרְעֹ֖ה לֵאמֹ֑ר מַדּ֡וּעַ לֹא֩ כִלִּיתֶ֨ם חָקְכֶ֤ם לִלְבֹּן֙ כִּתְמ֣וֹל שִׁלְשֹׁ֔ם גַּם־תְּמ֖וֹל גַּם־הַיּֽוֹם׃

Greek (Septuagint)

καὶ ἐμαστιγώθησαν οἱ γραμματεῖς τοῦ γένους τῶν υἱῶν Ἰσραὴλ οἱ κατασταθέντες ἐπ’ αὐτοὺς ὑπὸ τῶν ἐπ’ ἐπιστατῶν τοῦ Φαραώ, λέγοντες Διὰ τί οὐ συνετελέσατε τὰς συντάξεις ὑμῶν τῆς πλινθίας καθάπερ ἐχθὲς καὶ τρίτην ἡμέραν καὶ τὸ τῆς σήμερον;

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

Latin (Vulgate)

Flagellatique sunt qui præerant operibus filiorum Israël, ab exactoribus Pharaonis, dicentibus: Quare non impletis mensuram laterum sicut prius, nec heri, nec hodie?

Spanish

Además, a los supervisores israelitas que los capataces del faraón habían puesto a cargo, los golpeaban y les reclamaban: “¿Por qué no cumplieron con su cuota de ladrillos ni ayer ni hoy, como lo hacían antes?”

Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)

Y azotaban á los capataces de los hijos de Israel, que los cuadrilleros de Faraón habían puesto sobre ellos, diciendo: ¿ Por qué no habéis cumplido vuestra tarea de ladrillo ni ayer ni hoy, como antes?

English

Then the Israelite foremen, whom Pharaoh ’s taskmasters had set over the people, were beaten and asked, “ Why have you not fulfilled your quota of bricks yesterday or today, as you did before?” The Cry of the Israelites

✦ What the text says

Summary

The Egyptian taskmasters of Pharaoh strike the Israelite foremen who had been appointed over the forced laborers, demanding to know why they have not completed the daily brick quota, "as before," neither yesterday nor today.

Key words

yuKu ("they were struck", H5221) — hophal (causative passive) verb: the foremen are the ones acted upon, not the agents of striking; the causer (implied: the taskmasters) is not the grammatical subject here.
shoteRei ("foremen of", H7860) — qal participle, construct plural: describes the Israelite officials as those who "do" the supervising, linked in construct to bene Yisra'el ("sons of Israel", H1121G).
nogeSei ("taskmasters of", H5065) — qal participle, construct plural: parallel construction to shoteRei, but describing the Egyptian overseers, linked in construct to Par'oh ("Pharaoh", H6547J).
khiliTem ("have you completed", H3615G) — piel perfect, 2nd person plural: intensive stem stressing full completion, addressed directly to the foremen as a group.
choke-Chem ("your prescribed portion", H2706G + H9026) — construct noun with pronominal suffix: names a fixed, measured obligation assigned specifically to "you (plural)."

What the text says

The verse opens with the narrative vav on yuKu ("they were struck"), a hophal form placing the Israelite shoteRei ("foremen") in the passive role of those beaten. The subject performing the striking is not stated directly in this clause; instead, the text specifies who had authority over the foremen through a relative clause: 'asher-samu 'alehem nogeSei Par'oh ("whom the taskmasters of Pharaoh had set over them"). This clause uses samu ("they had appointed", H7760L), a qal perfect, to describe a prior, completed act of appointment — establishing the chain of command before narrating the beating.

The speech introduced by lemor ("saying", H0559, infinitive) is framed as a question using maddua' ("why?", H4069) plus the negation lo' ("not", H3808) and khiliTem ("have you completed", H3615G), a piel perfect verb. The piel stem here intensifies the sense of completion — not merely "finishing" but "finishing in full." The object of this incomplete action is choke-Chem ("your prescribed portion", H2706G with suffix H9026), further specified by the infinitive libbon ("in making bricks", H3835B), showing the quota is tied to brick production.

The closing temporal phrase stacks ki-temol shilshom ("as yesterday, three days ago" — an idiom for "as before") against gam-temol gam-hayyom ("neither yesterday nor today"), using the repeated adverb gam ("also/neither", H1571) to construct a merism emphasizing that the shortfall spans both the immediate past and the present day.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the causer of the beating explicitly as ὑπὸ τῶν ἐπιστατῶν τοῦ Φαραώ ("by the overseers of Pharaoh"), making the passive agent grammatically explicit, where the Hebrew hophal yuKu leaves the agent implicit and conveyed only through the following relative clause. The Vulgate's ab exactoribus Pharaonis similarly supplies the agent explicitly. The Hebrew idiom ki-temol shilshom ("as yesterday, three days ago") is rendered by the LXX as καθάπερ ἐχθὲς καὶ τρίτην ἡμέραν (a literal calque of the idiom), while the Vulgate translates it more freely as sicut prius ("as before").

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