Exodus 9:4

Summary

Exodus 9:4 states that Yehovah will make a distinction between the livestock of Israel and the livestock of Egypt, so that nothing belonging to the Israelites will die. The verse uses a repeated construct structure to frame this separation as a contrast between two groups of animals.

Key words

• hif.Lah ("he will separate", H6395) — Hiphil (causative) form, sequential perfect continuing the narrative chain; the causative stem frames Yehovah as the active agent producing a distinction, not merely observing one.
• bein ("between", H0996G) — construct form used twice, creating a symmetrical "between X and between Y" structure that syntactically pairs the two groups of livestock.
• mikneh ("livestock of", H4735) — masculine singular construct, appearing twice, each time bound to a following place name (Yisra'El, Mitzrayim), forming the phrases "livestock of Israel" and "livestock of Egypt."
• yamut ("it will die", H4191) — Qal imperfect, denoting an open, future-oriented action; paired with the negation lo ("not", H3808), it produces "it will not die."
• davar ("anything", H1697I) — masculine singular noun functioning here as an indefinite pronoun ("a thing/anything"), closing the clause with a totalizing scope over what belongs to "the people of Israel" (v'nei Yisra'El, H1121G).

What the text says

The verse opens with a narrative vav attached to hif.Lah, continuing the sequence of prior verses and placing Yehovah (Yehovah, H3068G) as grammatical subject of a causative verb: he causes a separation rather than a separation simply occurring. The object of this causative action is structured through a doubled preposition bein...u-bein ("between...and between"), each governing a construct chain mikneh + place name. This repetition creates a balanced, mirror-like syntax: "between the livestock of Israel and between the livestock of Egypt," which linguistically enacts the very distinction being described.

The second half of the verse shifts to a negated imperfect verb, lo yamut ("it will not die"), governing a partitive expression: mi-kol...davar ("from all...anything"). This construction combines the preposition mi ("of", H9006) with kol ("all", H3605) and the indefinite noun davar, producing an idiomatic totalizing negation — "not a single thing" — restricted to what belongs to v'nei Yisra'El ("the sons/people of Israel"). The construct chain here does not name livestock explicitly but uses the broader term davar, leaving the referent grammatically open, though contextually tied to the animals mentioned earlier.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the verb in first person, paradoxaso ego ("I will make marvelous/distinguish"), where the Hebrew has the third-person hif.Lah ("he will separate") with Yehovah as explicit subject — a shift from third-person narration to divine first-person speech. The LXX text as given also shows an irregular repetition of "τῶν υἱῶν" ("of the sons") in the phrase describing Egypt's livestock, where the Hebrew simply pairs mikneh Mitzrayim ("livestock of Egypt") without any reference to "sons." The Vulgate uses mirabile ("something marvelous") for hif.Lah, emphasizing the wondrous nature of the act rather than the act of separation/distinction itself, and shifts the closing negation to nihil omnino pereat ("let nothing at all perish") rather than the Hebrew's "it will not die."