וַיְכַסֵּ֔הוּ (way·ḵas·sê·hū) in Joshua 24:7: Conjunctive waw | Verb - Piel - Consecutive imperfect - third person masculine singular | third person masculine singular
וַיְכַסֵּ֔הוּ (way·ḵas·sê·hū) in Joshua 24:7
Source Word
Joshua 24:7 token 13 is וַיְכַסֵּ֔הוּ, H3680, parsed Conj-w | V-Piel-ConsecImperf-3ms | 3ms and aligned with and engulfed them.
How The Form Affects Interpretation
The construction keeps the covering action inside a tight sequence of remembered deliverance, with the sea acting upon the pursuing force under the Lord's narrated agency.
How To Communicate It
Present the form as part of Israel's eyewitness memory: the sea that the Lord brought over the pursuers engulfed that collective enemy.
What Not To Say
- Grammatical form should serve context, not override it.
- Let the preceding sea identify the covering subject and the prior Egyptians identify the collective object.
- A third-person singular suffix can be represented by English them when context treats a group collectively.
- Keep the judgment and deliverance claims within Joshua 24's historical rehearsal.
What Does The Label Mean?
Hebrew-verb
Verb
Conjunctive waw | Verb - Piel - Consecutive imperfect - third person masculine singular | third person masculine singular
Piel
Consecutive imperfect
Third
Masculine
Singular
Conj-w
Third person masculine singular
The waw-linked sequence verb follows the Lord's bringing of the sea over the Egyptian force. Its third-person masculine singular shape aligns naturally with the sea as subject, while the matching singular suffix is rendered them because the preceding Egyptians are treated collectively in the English account.
The form completes Joshua's Red Sea recollection by describing the sea covering the pursuing enemy whom Israel's ancestors saw judged.
What The Form Does In This Verse
The verb follows He brought the sea and points back to the Egyptian pursuers named earlier in the sentence.
The Lord's first-person rehearsal of Israel's history during covenant renewal at Shechem.
It completes the sea-deliverance action by presenting the sea as covering the enemy that had pursued Israel's ancestors.
It does not make the sea an independent power, erase the human cost of judgment, or let a singular suffix overturn the passage's collective Egyptian referent.
How Much The Form Matters Here
High: The verb completes the sea action at the center of the Lord's remembered deliverance from the pursuing Egyptians.
Waw-linked Piel sequence form with collective object reference. continues the brought-the-sea action by stating that it engulfed the pursuers. Attached to the sea as subject and the Egyptian pursuing force as the suffixed object. Governed by the historical recital in Joshua 24:5-7. The Hebrew suffix is singular in form, while BSB renders the collective Egyptian referent with them.
Why does BSB say engulfed them when the Hebrew suffix is singular? The suffix resumes the Egyptian enemy as a collective referent, so English naturally represents the group with a plural pronoun.
Interpretive: The sequence form supports and engulfed, while context guides the singular suffix's collective English rendering them.
The nearest singular subject is the sea, not an unnamed independent agent. The object suffix is singular in form even though the preceding Egyptian force is expressed and translated collectively. Engulfed reflects destructive covering in this scene; H3680 has different effects in other settings.
Pronoun number must match mechanically: Translate referents in context; a singular Hebrew form can resume a collective group rendered as them. Piel alone means annihilate: The sea event and its participants establish destructive engulfing in this occurrence. grammar supplies the whole deliverance theology: The historical recital, not one verbal form, names the Lord's saving and judging action.
How The Interpretation Is Derived
Joshua 24:7 token 13 is וַיְכַסֵּ֔הוּ, H3680, parsed Conj-w | V-Piel-ConsecImperf-3ms | 3ms and aligned with and engulfed them.
כָּסָה can describe covering, concealing, or overwhelming. The immediately preceding sea and pursuing Egyptians establish destructive engulfing in this retelling.
The sea is the nearest masculine singular subject, and the object suffix resumes the enemy previously named as the Egyptians even though English represents that collective referent with them.
At Shechem the Lord recounts how Israel's ancestors cried out, were separated from their pursuers by darkness, and witnessed the sea overcome the Egyptian force.
The action belongs to Joshua 24's covenant-renewal memory of the Lord's saving acts; comparison with Exodus may illuminate the event, but this guide explains Joshua's own compressed clause.
Follow the action chain aloud: the Lord placed darkness, brought the sea, and the sea engulfed the pursuers. Then explain the singular Hebrew object and collective English translation.
Do not use verb stem or pronoun number alone to settle every historical question, and do not detach the judgment from the deliverance account that names its participants.