Exodus 7:12

Summary

Exodus 7:12 describes the moment when the Egyptian magicians throw down their staffs, which turn into serpents, but Aaron's staff swallows their staffs. The verse marks the climax of the contest between Aaron's sign and the Egyptian imitation of it.

Key words

• va-yashlikhu ("and they threw down", H7993) — hiphil narrative form, causative: they made their staffs fall/be thrown, not simply "fell."
• ish ("each one", H0376I) — singular noun used distributively, indicating each individual magician performed the action separately.
• va-yihyu ("and they became", H1961) — qal narrative form of the verb "to be," marking a change of state, in sequence with the prior action.
• tanninim ("serpents", H8577M) — masculine plural noun; the term used here differs from the word used elsewhere in Exodus for Aaron's own sign before Pharaoh (H8577 vs. other serpent terms in the narrative complex).
• va-yivla' ("and it swallowed up", H1104) — qal narrative, singular "he/it," with the subject being matteh-Aharon ("the staff of Aaron"), stressing a single staff acting against many.

What the text says

The verse is built as a chain of three narrative (vav-consecutive) clauses, each advancing the action in sequence: they threw down → they became → it swallowed. This chain structure in Hebrew narrative prose presents the events as a tightly linked sequence rather than as separate independent statements.

The construct phrases matte-hu ("his staff", H4294G + H9023) and later matteh-Aharon ("staff of Aaron", H4294G + proper name) versus mattotam ("their staffs", H4294G + H9028, feminine plural form) show a grammatical asymmetry: the singular matteh form (masculine construct) is used for the individual magicians and for Aaron, while the final word for "their staffs" appears in a feminine plural form. The Hebrew text places emphasis on the singularity of Aaron's staff (matteh-Aharon, singular construct) against the collective plural mattotam ("their staffs"), a numeric contrast that underscores one staff acting upon many.

The direct object marker 'et (H0853) preceding mattotam signals grammatically that "their staffs" is the direct object of "it swallowed," clarifying the syntactic relationship between the subject (Aaron's staff) and the object being consumed.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders ish ("each one") with ἕκαστος and tanninim ("serpents") with δράκοντες, both matching the distributive and plural sense of the Hebrew. The Vulgate uses singuli for ish and dracones for tanninim, similarly preserving the distributive and plural nuances. No substantive divergence in meaning appears among the Hebrew, LXX, and Vulgate for this verse; the versions align closely in reporting the sequence of throwing, transformation, and swallowing.