Deuteronomy 1:10

Summary

The verse states that Yehovah, the God of the addressees, has multiplied them, so that on the present day they exist in a number comparable to the stars of the sky. It functions as a declaration of numerical increase attributed directly to divine action.

Key words

• Yehovah ("Yehovah", H3068) — the divine name functioning as subject of the sentence.
• 'elohei ("God", H0430) — masculine plural construct noun meaning "God of," bound to the suffix "your," forming "your God."
• hirbah ("he has increased", H7235A) — hiphil perfect verb, indicating a causative, completed action: the subject caused the increase, not merely experienced it.
• hinnekhem (from hinneh, "here/behold", H2009, with suffix) — an interjection drawing attention to a present state, reinforced by ha-yom ("the day", H3117G/H9009), meaning "today."
• kokhvei ("stars of", H3556) — masculine plural construct, "stars of," bound to ha-shamayim ("the heavens", H8064), forming the comparison "stars of the heavens."

What the text says

The sentence opens with Yehovah 'elohei-khem ("Yehovah your God") as the grammatical subject, followed by the verb hirbah ("he has increased") in the hiphil perfect. The hiphil stem marks the action as causative — the subject actively brought about the increase of the object, rather than the object simply growing on its own. The perfect aspect presents this as a completed action with ongoing results. The object is marked by 'et (H0853, untranslated object marker) attached to the suffix -khem ("you," masculine plural), making the addressees the recipients of this multiplication.

The second clause is introduced by ve-hinnekhem ("and behold you"), combining the conjunction ve ("and") with the interjection hinneh ("here/behold") and the pronominal suffix "you." This construction shifts the sentence from narrating a past completed action to presenting a vivid, immediate state — "and here you are." The phrase ha-yom ("the day," with definite article, meaning "today") anchors this observation to the present moment of speaking.

The comparison itself uses a construct chain: kokhvei ha-shamayim ("stars of the heavens"), with the preposition ke- ("like") attached to kokhvei, producing "like the stars of the heavens." This is followed by la-rov ("for multitude" or "in abundance"), a prepositional phrase using rov ("multitude", H7230) that intensifies the comparison, emphasizing quantity rather than any other quality of the stars.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders hirbah with ἐπλήθυνεν ("multiplied"), matching the Hebrew hiphil causative sense. The Vulgate adds an introductory clause not present in this Hebrew segment ("Non possum solus sustinere vos"), which belongs to the surrounding context in the Vulgate's continuous rendering of the passage rather than to this verse's Hebrew wording itself. Both LXX and Vulgate render la-rov ("for multitude") with terms meaning "in multitude" (τῷ πλήθει) or "very many" (plurimi), preserving the sense of quantity found in the Hebrew rov.