Deuteronomy 1:30

Summary

The verse affirms that Yehovah, the God of the addressed group, is the one who goes ahead of them and will fight on their behalf, doing so in the same manner he acted in Egypt, an action they themselves witnessed.

Key words

• Yah.weh ("Yehovah", H3068G) — the divine name, used here as the subject of the entire sentence.
• ho.Lekh ("[one who] goes", H1980G) — Qal participle, masculine singular; combined with the definite article ha (H9009) it forms a substantive phrase "the one who goes," describing Yehovah in ongoing action rather than a single event.
• yi.la.Chem ("he will fight", H3898A) — Niphal imperfect; the imperfect aspect marks future/ongoing action, and the Niphal stem is the form regularly used for verbs of combat, expressing engagement in fighting.
• 'a.Sah ("he did", H6213A) — Qal perfect, marking a completed past action, contrasted with the imperfect yi.la.Chem.
• 'ei.nei. ("eyes", H5869J) — feminine dual construct, forming with the suffix khem the phrase "your eyes," anchoring the statement in direct visual experience rather than report.

What the text says

The clause opens with Yah.weh followed immediately by 'e.lo.hei-khem ("your God", H0430G with suffix), forming the subject phrase "Yehovah your God." This subject is then modified by the participial phrase ha.ho.Lekh li.f.nei.khem ("the one going before you"), which uses a participle rather than a finite verb — grammatically presenting the action as a characteristic or continuous state rather than a single event. The independent pronoun hu' ("he", H1931) is inserted before the main verb yi.la.Chem, which in Hebrew syntax adds emphasis, isolating the subject before stating what he will do.

The verb yi.la.Chem is Niphal imperfect, indicating future or continuing engagement in battle "for you" (la.khem, H9036). The second half of the verse shifts to the Qal perfect 'a.Sah ("he did"), describing a completed prior action "with you" ('it.te.khem, H0854) "in Egypt" (mitz.Ra.yim, H4714G). The final phrase le.'ei.nei.khem ("to your eyes") uses the dual construct form of "eyes," a grammatical marker of the paired body part, and functions idiomatically to state that the action took place within their direct sight, without an explicit verb of seeing in the Hebrew clause itself.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the concluding clause as ἐποίησεν ἡμῖν ("he did for us," first person), where the Hebrew has 'it.te.khem ("with you," second person). The LXX also adds αὐτοὺς ("them") as an object of the fighting verb, where the Hebrew yi.la.Chem has no stated object beyond "for you." The Vulgate translates ho.Lekh as "ductor est vester" ("who is your leader"), an interpretive rendering rather than a literal "one who goes," and replaces the Hebrew "before your eyes" with "cunctis videntibus" ("all watching"), a more general expression than the dual-construct "your eyes" in the Hebrew.