Exodus 5:2

Summary

Pharaoh responds to Moses and Aaron's request by questioning the identity and authority of Yehovah, denying any knowledge of him, and refusing to release Israel. The verse is structured as a direct quotation containing a rhetorical question followed by a flat declarative refusal.

Key words

• mi ("who?", H4310) — interrogative pronoun opening Pharaoh's question; it questions identity/status, not existence.
• 'eshma' ("I will listen", H8085H) — qal imperfect, first person; expresses a hypothetical future action ("that I should listen"), tied to the relative 'asher ("that", H0834A).
• shallach ("letting go", H7971H) — piel infinitive; the piel stem intensifies the basic sense of "send," giving "release/let go" rather than a neutral "send."
• yada'ti ("I know", H3045) — qal perfect, first person; marks a completed state — Pharaoh asserts he has no existing knowledge of Yehovah, not merely that he refuses to acknowledge him now.
• 'ashalleach ("I will let go", H7971H) — piel imperfect, first person, negated by lo' ("not", H3808); mirrors shallach earlier but as a finite future-tense refusal, closing the verse with negation.

What the text says

The verse divides into two parts. The first is Pharaoh's question: mi Yehovah 'asher 'eshma' beqolo leshallach 'et-Yisra'el — "Who is Yehovah, that I should listen to his voice, to let Israel go?" The interrogative mi ("who?", H4310) does not ask for a name but for standing or authority — the construction with the relative 'asher ("that", H0834A) plus the imperfect 'eshma' ("I will listen", H8085H) frames a purpose/result clause: Pharaoh asks what standing Yehovah has such that Pharaoh would obey. The phrase beqolo ("to his voice," H6963A with 3ms suffix H9023) is governed by the preposition be ("to", H9003), producing the idiom "listen to his voice," i.e., obey. The infinitive leshallach ("letting go", H7971H) with prefixed le ("by/to", H9005) expresses purpose or result — "so as to let Israel go."

The second part is Pharaoh's direct answer to his own rhetorical question, given in two negated clauses: lo' yada'ti 'et-Yehovah ("I have not known Yehovah") and vegam 'et-Yisra'el lo' 'ashalleach ("and also Israel I will not let go"). The perfect yada'ti ("I know", H3045) denotes a completed, settled state of non-knowledge, while the closing 'ashalleach ("I will let go", H7971H) is imperfect, projecting the refusal into ongoing/future action. The repetition of the root shalach ("to send/let go", H7971H) in both piel infinitive and piel imperfect forms creates a frame around the verse, linking the request in the question to the flat refusal in the answer.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders Yisra'el in the request clause as τοὺς υἱοὺς Ἰσραήλ ("the sons of Israel"), adding "sons of" where the Hebrew has only Yisra'el ("Israel", H3478). The Vulgate frames the entire utterance as a reply ("At ille respondit") without a verb corresponding to va-yo'mer ("and he said", H0559) plus the subject Par'oh ("Pharaoh", H6547J) as in the Hebrew, and shifts mi Yehovah to "Quis est Dominus" ("Who is the Lord"), using "Dominus" for the divine name rather than transliterating it.