Deuteronomy 1:27

Summary

Deuteronomy 1:27 describes the people murmuring inside their tents, accusing Yehovah of having brought them out of Egypt out of hatred, with the intent of handing them over to the Amorites to be destroyed. The verse quotes their own words as an accusation against the deity's motives.

Key words

• te.ra.ge.Nu ("you murmured", H7279) — niphal narrative form, describing the people's collective grumbling as a continuing narrated action.
• sin.'At ("hatred of", H8135) — feminine singular construct, linking directly to Yehovah, forming the phrase "hatred of Yehovah" (i.e., hatred attributed to Yehovah, or possibly hatred directed at the people from him).
• ho.tzi.'A.nu ("he brought us out", H3318H) — hiphil perfect, causative, marking a completed act: Yehovah as the one causing the exodus from Egypt.
• Tet ("to give", H5414G) and hash.mi.De.nu ("to destroy us", H8045) — both qal/hiphil infinitives introduced by le- ("to"), expressing purpose clauses: the alleged intent behind the exodus.
• Yad ("hand of", H3027H) — construct noun, forming "hand of the Amorite," an idiom for power or control, into which the people claim they would be delivered.

What the text says

The verse is built as a chain of narrative verbs: va-teragenu ("and you murmured") followed by va-tomeru ("and you said"), both introducing the speech act. What follows is the direct quotation of the people's complaint, structured around the construct phrase be-sin'at Yehovah ("in/because of the hatred of Yehovah"). The construct chain does not use a verb "to hate" directly but a noun form, which ties the accusation grammatically to Yehovah as either the source or object of hatred — the construct itself does not specify whether Yehovah hates the people or is hated by them, but the following clause (Yehovah as subject of ho.tzi.'A.nu, "he brought us out") indicates the people interpret the exodus as motivated by Yehovah's own hatred toward them.

The two purpose infinitives — la-tet ("to give") and le-hashmidenu ("to destroy us") — form a parallel structure, both governed by le-, expressing what the people claim was the goal of the exodus: to give them into "the hand of the Amorite" and thereby destroy them. This construction presents the exodus not as liberation but, in the people's accusation, as a deliberate act of betrayal.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders sin'at Yehovah ("hatred of Yehovah") with a subordinate causal clause, Διὰ τὸ μισεῖν Κύριον ἡμᾶς ("because the Lord hates us"), making the direction of hatred explicit (Yehovah hating the people) — a interpretive choice not required by the Hebrew construct, which is grammatically ambiguous. The Vulgate similarly renders it as Odit nos Dominus ("The Lord hates us"), matching the LXX's directional reading rather than leaving it open as the Hebrew construct does.