Exodus 9:11

Summary

Exodus 9:11 states that the Egyptian magicians could no longer stand before Moses because of the boils, since the boils had afflicted the magicians themselves along with all of Egypt. The verse marks a turning point where the magicians, who had earlier replicated some plagues, are now personally incapacitated.

Key words

• ya.khe.Lu ("they were able", H3201) — qal perfect, third person plural, indicating a completed state of (in)capacity; negated by lo'- ("not", H3808) to express total inability.
• char.tu.Mim ("magicians", H2748) — masculine plural noun, appearing twice in the verse (as subject in position 5, and as object of the preposition ba- in position 20), tying the cause and effect together.
• 'a.Mod ("stand", H5975G) — qal infinitive construct, functioning as the complement of ya.khe.Lu, literally "were not able for standing."
• li-fenei ("before", from H9005 + H6440G) — construct phrase using panim ("face") idiomatically to mean "in front of, in the presence of" Moses.
• mi-penei ("because of", from H9006 + H6440I) — the same noun panim but with the preposition min ("from"), shifting the sense to causal: "away from the face of," i.e., "on account of."

What the text says

The verse opens with a negated verb-subject-infinitive construction: ve-lo' ya.khe.Lu ha-char.tu.Mim la-'a.Mod ("and the magicians were not able to stand"). The infinitive 'a.Mod ("stand", H5975G) depends grammatically on ya.khe.Lu, forming a single predicate of incapacity. This is followed by two prepositional phrases built on the same noun panim ("face"): li-fenei Mosheh ("before Moses") marks the position they could not maintain, while mi-penei ha-she.Chin ("because of the boils") marks the cause of their failure — both using the construct form of H6440 but with different prepositions producing spatial versus causal meaning.

The second clause, introduced by ki ("for", H3588A), explains why: ha.Yah ha-she.Chin ba-char.tu.Mim u-ve-khol-Mitz.ra.yim ("the boils were on the magicians and on all Egypt"). The verb ha.Yah ("it was", H1961) is qal perfect, describing a completed state affecting both the magicians and the broader Egyptian population, expressed through the parallel prepositional phrases ba-char.tu.Mim ("on the magicians") and u-ve-khol-Mitz.ra.yim ("and on all Egypt"), the latter built on the construct noun Khol ("all", H3605).

Differences between versions

The LXX renders char.tu.Mim ("magicians", H2748) as φαρμακοί ("sorcerers/poisoners"), a term with different connotations than the Hebrew, which more specifically denotes ritual specialists or diviners. The Vulgate uses malefici ("evildoers/sorcerers"), similarly diverging from the neutral Hebrew term. The LXX's phrase διὰ τὰ ἕλκη ("because of the sores") condenses the Hebrew's two-fold panim construction into a simpler causal phrase without the idiomatic "face" imagery present in the Hebrew.