Deuteronomy 1:34

Summary

The verse narrates that Yehovah heard the sound of the people's words, became angry, and swore an oath. It is a transitional sentence in the narrative, moving from the report of the people's complaint to Yehovah's reaction and subsequent oath.

Key words

• va-yishma' ("and he heard", H8085G) — qal narrative form, first in a chain of three consecutive verbs describing sequential divine actions.
• Yehovah ("Yehovah", H3068G) — the divine name, subject of all three verbs in this verse.
• qol ("sound of", H6963K) — masculine singular construct, linking to what follows; literally "the sound of the words," not merely "the words."
• divrei-khem ("words of you [pl.]", H1697G + H9026) — construct plural with second-person plural suffix, specifying whose words were heard.
• va-yishava' ("and he swore an oath", H7650) — niphal narrative form; the niphal stem here carries a reflexive/passive-oath nuance rather than a simple active sense.
• le-mor ("saying", H0559) — infinitive construct with prefixed preposition le, introducing the direct speech that follows in subsequent verses.

What the text says

The verse is built as a chain of three narrative (vav-consecutive) verbs — va-yishma' ("and he heard"), va-yiqtzof ("and he was angry"), va-yishava' ("and he swore an oath") — all sharing Yehovah as their subject. This chain structure presents the actions as a sequence of connected events: hearing leads to anger, which leads to an oath. The verbs are not marked as simultaneous but as consecutive stages in a single narrative movement.

The object of hearing is expressed through a construct chain: qol ("sound of", H6963K) governs divrei-khem ("words of you", H1697G + H9026), so the Hebrew phrase is literally "the sound of your words" rather than simply "your words" or "your voice." This construct phrasing adds a layer — what Yehovah hears is described as an auditory phenomenon (the sound) generated by the words, not the words as abstract content alone.

The final verb, va-yishava' ("and he swore an oath", H7650), is in the niphal stem, which in Biblical Hebrew often carries reflexive or passive nuances; here it denotes the reflexive act of oath-taking. This verb is followed by the infinitive le-mor ("saying", H0559), a standard formula that introduces direct speech, opening the way for the content of the oath given in the following verses.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew construct phrase qol divrei-khem ("the sound of your words") is rendered in the LXX as tēn phōnēn tōn logōn hymōn ("the voice of your words"), preserving the double-noun structure. The Vulgate similarly has vocem sermonum vestrorum ("the voice of your words"), also matching the Hebrew construct pattern. Several modern translations (e.g., BSB: "your words") simplify this into a single noun phrase, dropping the "sound of" element present in the Hebrew, LXX, and Vulgate.