Exodus 9:3

Summary

The verse opens with a dramatic announcement using hinneh ("there!", H2009) that the "hand of Yehovah" is about to strike the livestock of the addressee. The text then specifies the target animals — horses, donkeys, camels, cattle, and sheep — that are "in the field," concluding that this will be a "very heavy pestilence."

Key words

• hi.Neh ("there!", H2009) — an interjection that introduces the statement with immediacy, drawing attention to what follows as an imminent, visible reality.
• yad ("hand of...", H3027) — construct form linking directly to YHWH, forming the phrase "hand of Yehovah," a common expression for divine action or power exercised in an event.
• ho.Yah ("is about to be", H1961) — Qal participle, feminine singular, agreeing grammatically with the feminine noun yad. The participle form (rather than a finite verb) conveys an action in the process of occurring or about to occur, rather than a simple future.
• De.ver ("a pestilence", H1698) — masculine singular noun naming the affliction, modified by the adjective ka.Ved ("heavy", H3515) intensified by me.'Od ("very", H3966).
• mik.ne.Cha ("your livestock", H4735 + suffix) — construct noun with pronominal suffix, establishing the general category ("your livestock") before the list of specific animals that follows.

What the text says

The sentence is built around the subject yad-YHWH ("hand of Yehovah"), with the participle ho.Yah serving as the predicate. Because ho.Yah is a participle rather than a finite verb form, the Hebrew grammar presents the action as an event already underway or on the verge of happening, distinct from a simple future tense — the sense conveyed by hinneh + participle constructions elsewhere in Biblical Hebrew, which often mark vivid, imminent announcements.

The phrase be-miqnekha ("on your livestock") functions as the general target, and the relative clause asher basadeh ("which is in the field") qualifies this collective noun. What follows is a chain of prepositional phrases, each animal category (susim "horses," chamorim "donkeys," gemalim "camels," baqar "cattle," tson "sheep") introduced by repeated ba- ("in/on the"). This repetition creates a cumulative, itemized listing rather than a single collective statement — the Hebrew syntax enumerates the animals individually under the general heading of "livestock," rather than joining them with simple conjunctions throughout (only the final item, tson, is joined by u-, "and").

The closing phrase dever kaved me'od ("a pestilence very heavy") stands independently, without a verb, functioning as a nominal clause that names the coming affliction — "heavy" and "very" together intensify the description without additional verbal marking.

Differences between versions

The Vulgate reads "manus mea" ("my hand"), a first-person reference, where the Hebrew has yad-YHWH ("hand of Yehovah"), third person. The Vulgate also specifies "super agros tuos" ("upon your fields") as the initial target, differing from the Hebrew's "upon your livestock" (be-miqnekha). The LXX renders the participle hoyah with the future tense verb ἐπέσται ("will come/fall"), differing from the Hebrew's participial construction that suggests an event in progress. Additionally, the LXX renders dever ("pestilence") as θάνατος ("death") rather than a pestilence-specific term.