Exodus 7:4

Summary

The verse describes Pharaoh's refusal to listen to Moses and Aaron, followed by YHWH's declaration of three sequential actions: laying his hand on Egypt, and bringing out his hosts — the people of Israel — from Egypt through great acts of judgment.

Key words

• yishma' ("he will listen", H8085) — qal imperfect, expressing Pharaoh's ongoing/future refusal to heed the message.
• natati ("I will put", H5414) — qal perfect used with sequential (vav-consecutive) force, continuing the narrative sequence begun by the negated imperfect.
• yadi ("my hand", H3027) — construct noun with 1st person suffix, forming the idiom "my hand" as the object of the action against Egypt.
• hotzeti ("I will bring out", H3318) — hiphil (causative) perfect, sequential; the causative stem marks that YHWH himself causes the exodus, not that the people leave on their own.
• tziv'otai ("my hosts", H6635) — construct plural noun with 1st person suffix, describing Israel collectively as an organized body ("my armies/hosts").

What the text says

The verse opens with a negated qal imperfect, ve-lo yishma' ("and he will not listen", H8085), stating Pharaoh's anticipated response as an ongoing or future certainty rather than a single event. This clause is syntactically independent, describing the condition that triggers what follows.

The subsequent two verbs, natati (H5414) and hotzeti (H3318), are both perfects joined by narrative vav, a construction that in this context carries future sequential meaning ("I will put... and I will bring out..."), continuing directly from the preceding imperfect. The hiphil stem of hotzeti is significant: it marks the action as causative — YHWH is the one who causes the exodus, distinguishing this from a simple qal "to go out." The object of this bringing-out is layered in construct chains: tziv'otai ("my hosts", H6635) is placed in apposition with 'ammi ("my people", H5971) and further specified as benei Yisra'el ("the sons of Israel", H1121G), each construct phrase narrowing the referent. The final phrase, bi-shfatim gedolim ("with great acts of judgment", H8201 + H1419A), uses a plural noun with a plural adjective, indicating multiple judicial acts rather than a single event.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew text includes the clause "I will put my hand on Egypt" (ve-natati et-yadi be-Mitzrayim), rendered in the Vulgate as "immittamque manum meam super Aegyptum" — a close correspondence. The LXX (Swete), however, omits this clause entirely, moving directly from "Pharaoh will not listen to you" to "my people, the sons of Israel, out of the land of Egypt." Additionally, where the Hebrew has the plural noun shefatim ("acts of judgment", H8201) modified by the plural adjective gedolim ("great", H1419A), the LXX renders this with the singular noun ἐκδικήσει ("vindication/vengeance") modified by the singular adjective μεγάλῃ ("great"), shifting from multiple judicial acts to a single collective act.