Exodus 9:1

Summary

Yehovah instructs Moses to go before Pharaoh and deliver a message: as "the God of the Hebrews," Yehovah demands that Pharaoh release "my people" so that they may serve him. The verse is structured as a divine command followed by the exact speech Moses is to relay.

Key words

• bo' ("go", H0935) — qal imperative, a direct command to Moses to move toward Pharaoh; the sentence opens the mission with abrupt urgency, no introductory clauses.
• dibarta ("you will say", H1696) — piel sequential perfect, continuing the imperative chain; the piel stem intensifies the act of speaking, framing it as a formal declaration rather than casual conversation.
• 'elohei ("God of", H0430) — masculine plural noun in construct state, linking Yehovah grammatically to ha'ivrim ("the Hebrews", H5680); the construct form ties the divine identity specifically to this group in the message Pharaoh is to hear.
• shallach ("let go", H7971) — piel imperative, the core demand of the message; the piel stem again marks intensity, a forceful "send away" rather than a mere passive release.
• ya'avduni ("they may serve me", H5647) — qal imperfect with vav, expressing purpose or result following the release; the pronominal suffix -ni ("me") makes the object of service explicit as Yehovah himself.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence moves through a chain of verbs linked by the narrative vav: va-yomer ("and he said") introduces Yehovah's speech to Moses, followed by two imperatives — bo' ("go") and, via sequential perfect, dibarta ("you will say") — that structure Moses' task as a two-step action: go, then speak. The content of the speech itself is marked off by koh amar ("thus he says", H3541 + H0559), a formulaic introduction common to prophetic and diplomatic messages, signaling that what follows is to be quoted directly to Pharaoh.

Within the quoted message, the construct chain Yehovah 'elohei ha'ivrim binds the name of the deity to the identity of "the Hebrews" as a defined group, distinct from Pharaoh's own frame of reference. The final clause uses the piel imperative shallach ("let go") for the demand, followed by a qal imperfect with vav, ya'avduni, which grammatically expresses the goal or consequence of the release — the people are to serve Yehovah once freed. The suffix -ni ("me") directly ties the purpose of the release to Yehovah as the object of that service, without other qualifying language in this verse.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders ya'avduni ("they may serve me", H5647) with the Greek ἵνα λατρεύσωσιν ("so that they may serve"), preserving purpose. The Vulgate uses ut sacrificet mihi ("so that he may sacrifice to me"), narrowing the sense of service specifically to sacrificial worship, a nuance not explicit in the Hebrew verb 'avad ("to serve/work", H5647), which covers broader labor or service, not only cultic offering.