Exodus 7:18

Summary

The verse describes three consequences of the plague on the Nile: the fish in the river will die, the river will produce a foul smell, and the Egyptians will become unable (or unwilling) to drink water from it. The Hebrew presents these as a chain of sequential events introduced by narrative vav-constructions.

Key words

• da.Gah ("fish", H1710) — feminine singular noun with definite article, the subject of the first clause.
• ta.Mut ("it will die", H4191) — qal imperfect, third feminine singular, agreeing with the feminine da.Gah; expresses the initial future/ongoing action that starts the sequence.
• va.'Ash ("it will stink", H0887) — qal sequential perfect (vav-consecutive), continuing the narrative chain begun by the imperfect; this verb form is what links the stinking to the fish dying as a following event.
• nil.'U ("they will be weary", H3811) — niphal (passive/reflexive stem) sequential perfect, third plural, with Egypt as subject; the niphal stem marks this as something experienced by the Egyptians rather than an action they perform.
• sh.Tot ("drink", H8354) — qal infinitive, governed by the preposition li ("to", H9005), forming the phrase "to drink," indicating the goal or activity from which the Egyptians are wearied.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built as a chain of three verbal clauses linked by vav. The first verb, ta.Mut ("it will die", H4191), is a qal imperfect — grammatically marking future or ongoing action — and it sets the tense for what follows. The next two verbs, va.'Ash ("it will stink", H0887) and nil.'U ("they will be weary", H3811), are vav-consecutive perfects, a common Biblical Hebrew construction where a perfect form attached to vav continues the temporal sense of a preceding imperfect. This means all three actions—dying, stinking, and being wearied—are grammatically presented as a single continuous sequence of future events, even though only the first verb carries imperfect morphology.

The final clause uses the niphal verb nil.'U ("they will be weary", H3811) with Egypt as its subject. The niphal stem here casts the Egyptians as those who undergo an experience (a state of being unable or averse) rather than as agents performing an action. This is followed by the infinitive construction li-sh.Tot ("to drink", H8354 with H9005), which specifies the activity affected: the Egyptians' capacity or willingness "to drink" water min ha-y'Or ("from the River", H4480A + H2975G).

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the third clause as οὐ δυνήσονται...πιεῖν ("they will not be able to drink"), making explicit an inability to drink, where the Hebrew verb nil.'U (H3811, niphal of "to be weary") more literally denotes a state of weariness or exhaustion rather than incapacity. The Vulgate's affligentur...bibentes ("they will be afflicted...drinking") similarly shifts the sense toward affliction experienced while drinking, differing from the Hebrew's "being wearied of" the activity itself. The English translations BSB ("unable to drink") and SBLIBRE ("dará asco," i.e., "will be disgusted") each interpret this niphal verb differently — as incapacity or as revulsion — reflecting the semantic range of nil.'U (H3811) rather than a single fixed meaning in the Hebrew text.