Numbers 15:41

Summary

The verse presents a self-identification formula in which the speaker declares himself Yehovah ("Yehovah", H3068G) the God of the addressees, recalls the act of bringing them out of Egypt, and states the purpose of that act: to be their God. The declaration 'ani Yehovah 'elohekhem ("I [am] Yehovah your God") is repeated verbatim at the beginning and end of the verse, forming an envelope structure.

Key words

• 'aNi ("I", H0589) — independent personal pronoun, used twice to emphasize the speaker's identity rather than relying on the verb form alone.
• 'eloHei ("God of", H0430G) — masculine plural noun in construct state, meaning "God of," requiring the following suffix to complete the phrase "your God."
• hoTzeti ("I brought out", H3318H) — hiphil (causative) perfect, first person singular: a completed action of causing the people to go out, framed with the relative particle 'aSher ("who", H0834A) as a clause modifying "Yehovah your God."
• liHyot ("to become/to be", H1961) — qal infinitive with prefixed preposition li ("to", H9005), expressing purpose: "in order to be."
• lo.Him ("God", H0430G) — masculine plural noun (without construct here), preceded by le ("into/for", H9005) plus article-preposition la ("for the", H9005) attached to the pronominal suffix khem ("you", H9036), forming "to be for you as God."

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence opens with the pronoun 'aNi followed immediately by the name Yehovah and the construct noun 'eloHei plus suffix khem, producing the fixed formula "I, Yehovah, [am] the God of you [plural]." This formula contains no explicit verb "to be"; the predication is achieved through simple juxtaposition of pronoun, name, and noun, a common construction in Biblical Hebrew for identity statements.

A relative clause follows, introduced by 'aSher ("who," H0834A), which attaches to "Yehovah your God" and describes an action completed in the past through the hiphil perfect hoTzeti ("I brought out," H3318H). The hiphil stem marks this as a causative action — the subject causes the object (marked by the untranslated object marker 'et, H0853, plus suffix khem) to leave, here "from the land of Egypt" (me'Eretz Mitzrayim).

The purpose of this action is then stated with the infinitive construction liHyot lakhem leloHim — literally "to be for you for God" — using the preposition li to mark purpose ("in order to"), and a double preposition structure (la- + le-) around the pronominal suffix and the noun 'eloHim to express "for you as God." The verse closes by repeating the opening formula 'aNi Yehovah 'eloHeikhem, creating a structural frame (inclusio) around the historical clause and its stated purpose.