Exodus 7:10

Summary

Moses and Aaron come before Pharaoh and carry out the action Yehovah had commanded: Aaron throws down his staff before Pharaoh and his servants, and it becomes a tannin ("serpent", H8577).

Key words

• va-yaSHlekh ("and he threw down", H7993) — hiphil (causative) narrative form: Aaron does not simply drop the staff but causes it to be cast down, an active, deliberate motion.
• tzivvah ("he had commanded", H6680) — piel (intensive) perfect: marks a completed prior action, the command Yehovah gave before this scene, now being fulfilled.
• ka'asher ("as", H0834D with H9004) — relative particle with prefixed preposition, forming "just as," introducing the standard of comparison between the command and its execution.
• matte-hu ("his staff", H4294G + H9023) — masculine singular noun in construct with a pronominal suffix, identifying the specific object (Aaron's own staff) that is thrown.
• tannin ("a serpent", H8577M) — masculine singular noun, the result-state into which the staff becomes, marked by the preposition le ("into", H9005).

What the text says

The verse is built as a chain of narrative vav-prefixed verbs (va-yavo, "he went," H0935G; va-ya'asu, "they did," H6213A; va-yashlekh, "he threw down," H7993; va-yehi, "it became," H1961), each marking a sequential step: arrival, obedience, action, and transformation. This chaining structure ties the four events into one continuous report without separate clauses of cause or result — the Hebrew narrative form itself carries the sense of "and then... and then..."

The clause ka'asher tzivvah Yehovah ("just as Yehovah had commanded") uses a perfect verb inside a comparative clause, showing that the command referenced here precedes the current narrated moment — it looks back to an earlier instruction, not a new one. The object of the throwing, matte-hu ("his staff"), is marked by the direct object particle 'et (H0853, untranslated), which simply flags the noun phrase as the grammatical object of va-yashlekh. The final verb va-yehi le-tannin ("and it became into a serpent") uses the preposition le ("into") to express change of state — the staff does not merely resemble a serpent but "becomes" (hayah, H1961) one, with tannin as the resulting noun.

Differences between versions

The LXX adds "and his attendants" (καὶ τῶν θεραπόντων αὐτοῦ) already at the moment Moses and Aaron come before Pharaoh, a detail not present in this position in the Hebrew, which only mentions "his servants" ('avadav, H5650) later, in the throwing scene. The Vulgate's virgam ("rod/staff") and the LXX's ῥάβδον ("rod") both render matteh (H4294G) without the possessive suffix explicit in the Hebrew matte-hu ("his staff"), though the sense of possession is preserved contextually. The LXX renders tannin as δράκων ("dragon/serpent"), while the Vulgate uses colubrum ("serpent/snake"), both translating the single Hebrew noun tannin (H8577M) with terms carrying somewhat different connotations in Greek and Latin.