Exodus 8:27

Summary

The verse states a request to travel three days into the wilderness in order to sacrifice to Yehovah, the God of the speakers, in the manner that he will specify to them. The sentence combines a stated distance, a purpose clause, and a condition of future divine instruction.

Key words

• derekh ("a journey of", H1870L) — construct noun meaning literally "way/journey of," linking directly to the following number to form "a journey of three days."
• shelosheth ("three", H7969) — construct form of the numeral, grammatically bound to yamim, producing the phrase "three of days" = "three days."
• nelekh ("we will go", H1980G) — qal imperfect, first person plural, expressing an action not yet completed, here future/intended movement.
• zavachnu ("we will sacrifice", H2076) — qal perfect with vav-consecutive (sequential perfect), continuing the future sense begun by nelekh; grammatically past-form but functioning as future in this narrative chain.
• yomar ("he says", H559) — qal imperfect, third person masculine singular, referring to an act of speaking not yet completed — "he will say/command."

What the text says

The verse opens with the construct chain derekh shelosheth yamim ("a journey of three days"), a phrase built by stacking construct nouns: derekh ("journey of") governs shelosheth ("three of"), which governs yamim ("days"). This construct chain functions adverbially, modifying the verb nelekh ("we will go"), a qal imperfect indicating an action projected into the future. The preposition ba- ("in the") attaches to midbar ("wilderness"), marking the location of this future movement.

The vav on zavachnu ("and we will sacrifice") is a sequential (vav-consecutive) perfect, a Hebrew construction where a perfect verb-form following an imperfect continues the same future time-frame as the initial verb — despite the verb's perfect morphology, it does not indicate a completed past action here, but continues the sequence of intended future acts ("we will go... and [then] we will sacrifice"). The object of sacrifice is marked by la- ("to") plus YHWH, further specified by 'elohei-nu ("God of us"), a construct noun with pronominal suffix meaning "our God."

The final clause, introduced by ka'asher ("just as"), contains yomar ("he will say"), a qal imperfect verb describing an act not yet performed — the manner of sacrifice is contingent on future instruction "to us" ('eleinu).

Differences between versions

The LXX renders midbar ("wilderness", H4057B) with εἰς τὴν ἔρημον ("into the wilderness"), matching the Hebrew sense of destination, while the Hebrew preposition ba- more literally suggests location "in" rather than motion "into." The LXX also specifies the subject of the final clause as κύριος ("the Lord"), an explicit noun, where the Hebrew yomar ("he says", H559) leaves the subject implicit, understood from context as Yehovah. The Vulgate's præcepit ("he commanded") uses a completed past tense, differing from the future/imperfect nuance of Hebrew yomar ("he will say") and Greek εἶπεν ("he said," aorist).