Deuteronomy 1:33

Summary

The verse continues a description of Yehovah's guidance of Israel: the one who goes ahead of them on the journey searches out a camping place, and shows them the way by means of fire at night and cloud by day. The Hebrew builds this through a chain of purpose infinitives attached to the participle describing the guide.

Key words

• ho.Lekh ("went/goes", H1980G) — a qal participle with the definite article (ha-), functioning as a substantive: "the one who goes." It continues the subject introduced earlier in the passage (Yehovah), described in ongoing action.
• Tur ("to seek out", H8446) — qal infinitive prefixed by la- ("to"), expressing purpose: the goal of the "going" is "to seek out."
• cha.note ("to camp", H2583) — a second qal infinitive with la-, parallel to Tur, giving a second purpose: "to camp for you."
• r'ote ("to show", H7200G) — a hiphil (causative) infinitive with la-: not simply "to see" but "to cause you to see," i.e., "to show."
• 'anan ("cloud", H6051) — paired with 'esh ("fire", H0784) to mark the day/night contrast in how the guidance is manifested.

What the text says

The sentence is built as a series of infinitive clauses, each introduced by the preposition la- ("to"), all depending on the initial participle ho.Lekh ("the one who goes"). This creates a chain: "the one going before you... to seek out (Tur) for you a place, to camp (cha.note) for you... to show (r'ote) you in the way in which you will go." The infinitives Tur, cha.note, and r'ote all express purpose or result of the initial participial action, a common construction where a string of purpose clauses elaborates a single main action.

The clause 'a.Sher te.le.khu-Vah ("which you will go on it") uses the imperfect form te.le.khu (H1980G), marking future or ongoing action, and closes with the resumptive pronoun Vah ("her/it", H9034) referring back to De.rekh ("way", H1870K). The final phrase u.ve.'a.Nan yo.Mam ("and in the cloud by day") balances the earlier phrase ba.'Esh Lay.lah ("in the fire, night"), forming a night/day, fire/cloud contrast structured across the two ends of the verse rather than as a single joined clause.

Differences between versions

The LXX (Swete) reorders the material: it places "ἐν πυρὶ νυκτός" ("in fire of night") and "ἐν νεφέλῃ ἡμέρας" ("in cloud of day") as separate participial modifiers ("ὁδηγῶν," "leading," and implied with δεικνύων) rather than following the Hebrew's placement of ba'Esh Laylah between the infinitives chanotechem and r'otechem. The Vulgate renders 'anan ("cloud", H6051) as "columnam nubis" ("pillar of the cloud"), adding "columnam" ("pillar/column"), a word with no separate lexical counterpart in this Hebrew verse.