Numbers 33:8

Summary

The verse narrates one stage of the wilderness itinerary: the Israelites depart from Hahiroth, cross through the sea toward the wilderness, travel three days into the wilderness of Etham, and encamp at Marah. The four verbs form a chain of sequential actions marked by narrative vav.

Key words

• mi.pe.nei ("from before", H9006/H6440G) — a compound preposition + construct noun, literally "from the face of," used here to mark the starting point of the departure relative to Hahiroth.
• va.i.ya.'av.Ru ("and they passed", H5674A) — qal narrative verb, third person plural, continuing the chain of consecutive past actions begun by va.i.yis.'U.
• mid.Ba.rah ("wilderness", H4057B) — masculine singular noun carrying the directional he ending (H9011), which shifts the meaning from a static location to "toward the wilderness."
• De.rekh she.Lo.shet ya.Mim ("a journey of three days", H1870L/H7969/H3117G) — a construct chain (noun of noun of noun) expressing duration as a measured distance, literally "a way of three of days."
• va.i.ya.cha.Nu ("and they encamped", H2583) — qal narrative verb closing the sequence, marking the terminus of this stage at Marah.

What the text says

The verse is built entirely on the narrative vav + qal verb pattern (va.i.yis.'U, va.i.ya.'av.Ru, va.i.Ye.le.Khu, va.i.ya.cha.Nu), a chain typical of Hebrew itinerary lists, where each verb marks a new stage without subordination — "and they set out... and they passed... and they went... and they encamped." This creates a paratactic rhythm: place names and durations are simply appended to the verb chain rather than embedded in dependent clauses.

The phrase mi.pe.nei ha.chi.Rot ("from before Hahiroth") uses the construct noun pe.nei ("face of") to indicate the starting position, a common Hebrew idiom for spatial reference that does not literally mean "face" in translation. The directional he suffix on mid.Ba.rah turns the noun "wilderness" into a directional target, "toward the wilderness," a nuance not visible in English renderings that simply say "into the wilderness." The construct chain De.rekh she.Lo.shet ya.Mim ("a journey of three days") measures distance in temporal units, a standard Hebrew way of expressing travel length without a separate word for "distance."

Differences between versions

The Hebrew mi.pe.nei ha.chi.Rot ("from before Hahiroth") is rendered by the LXX as ἀπέναντι Εἱρὼθ ("opposite Hahiroth"), reading the spatial phrase as indicating a position facing the place rather than departure from it. The Vulgate reads "de Phihahiroth" ("from Pi-hahiroth"), treating the preposition pe ("mouth of," part of the name in other passages) as fused into the place name itself, differing from the Hebrew construction here which uses pe.nei ("face of") rather than the place-name element pi.