Exodus 8:11

Summary

The verse announces that the frogs will depart from Pharaoh, his houses, his servants, and his people, remaining only in the River (the Nile). It is part of Moses' response regarding when the plague of frogs will end.

Key words

• sa.Ru ("they will depart", H5493) — qal sequential perfect, third person plural; continues the narrative sequence begun earlier, describing an action that will follow as a consequence.
• tzfardeim ("frogs", H6854) — masculine plural noun with definite article ha ("the", H9009), identifying the specific frogs already mentioned in the plague narrative.
• battekha ("your houses", H1004B) — masculine plural construct noun with second-person masculine singular suffix kha ("your", H9021), meaning "houses of you."
• amekha ("your people", H5971A) — masculine singular construct noun with the same suffix, contrasting singular "people" with the surrounding plural nouns (houses, servants).
• tishaarnah ("they will remain", H7604) — niphal imperfect, third person feminine plural, agreeing grammatically with the feminine plural noun tzfardeim ("frogs"); the niphal stem conveys a passive or resultative nuance, "will be left remaining."

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built around two verbs framing a list of locations. The first verb, sa.Ru ("they will depart", H5493), governs a series of four prepositional phrases marked by mi ("from", H4480A/H9006): "from you," "from your houses," "from your servants," "from your people." Each phrase after the first uses the conjunction u ("and", H9002) to link them in sequence, and three of the four nouns (houses, servants, people) appear in construct form with the pronominal suffix kha ("your", H9021) attached, producing a chain of possessive relationships tied to Pharaoh.

The clause then pivots with the adverb rak ("only", H7535), introducing the restrictive counterpart: the frogs will remain solely ba-yor ("in the River", H9003+H2975G), using the definite article to specify the Nile as the sole remaining location. The final verb, tishaarnah ("they will remain", H7604), is a niphal imperfect that agrees in gender and number with tzfardeim ("frogs", H6854), reinforcing subject-verb concord in Hebrew grammar. The niphal stem here expresses a resultant state — the frogs "will be left" rather than actively remaining, a passive nuance not always distinguishable in translation from an active "will stay."

Differences between versions

The LXX (Septuagint) adds a location absent in the Hebrew and Vulgate: it lists ἐκ τῶν ἐπαύλεων ("from the country houses/farms"), an extra term not corresponding to any Hebrew word in this verse, expanding the list beyond "houses, servants, people" found in the Hebrew battekha, avadekha, amekha. The Vulgate follows the Hebrew list closely without this addition.