Deuteronomy 10:12

Summary

Deuteronomy 10:12 opens a rhetorical question addressed to Israel: what does Yehovah ("Yehovah", H3068G) their God request from them? The verse answers with a chain of four infinitive actions: fearing, walking, loving, and serving, the last two qualified by the totality of "heart" and "being/soul."

Key words

• mah ("what?", H4100) — interrogative pronoun opening the rhetorical question; it sets up the entire verse as an answer to "what is being asked."
• sho'El ("asking", H7592) — qal participle, masculine singular, presenting the action as a present, ongoing demand ("the one doing the asking") rather than a past command.
• yir'ah ("fear", H3372H) — qal infinitive; infinitives in this list function adverbially/nominally, describing the content of what is asked rather than an imperative.
• le.va.ve.Kha ("your heart", H3824 + H9021) — construct noun with 2ms suffix, forming the phrase "all of your heart," paired with nafsheKha ("your being/soul", H5315G + H9021) to express totality of the person.
• ki 'im ("that... except", H3588B + H0518B) — combined subordinating particles functioning together as "except that / but only," restricting the answer to the following infinitives.

What the text says

The verse is structured as a question-and-answer unit. The question is carried by mah ("what?", H4100) combined with the participle sho'El ("asking", H7592), literally "what is Yehovah your God asking from with you" — the preposition me'im ("from with", H9006+H5973B) indicating the source of the request is directly tied to the addressee. The answer is introduced by the double particle ki 'im (H3588B + H0518B), which restricts the response: "except/only" the following.

Four infinitives follow, each governed by the preposition le ("to", H9005): le-yir'ah ("to fear", H3372H), la-lekhet ("to walk", H1980I), u-le-'ahavah ("and to love", H0157G), and ve-la-'avod ("and to serve", H5647G). Hebrew infinitives with le function similarly to English "to fear / to walk / to love / to serve," listing the content of the request as a series of actions rather than commands in imperative form. The walking is qualified by be-khol-derakhav ("in all his ways", H3605+H1870G), using construct chains to mark totality ("all of"). The final infinitive, la-'avod ("to serve", H5647G), is followed by two parallel prepositional phrases built on construct nouns: be-khol levavekha ("with all your heart", H3824) and u-vekhol nafshekha ("and with all your being", H5315G), both using the construct pattern khol + noun to express exhaustive totality of the person addressed.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the Hebrew list of four infinitives (fear, walk, love, serve) with Greek infinitives (φοβεῖσθαι, πορεύεσθαι, ἀγαπᾷν) but shifts to an indicative verb λατρεύει ("he serves") for the fourth item where the Hebrew maintains the infinitive la-'avod ("to serve", H5647G), producing a grammatical break in the parallel structure that the Hebrew does not show. The Vulgate preserves the infinitive-chain structure using subjunctive verbs (timeas, ambules, diligas, servias) governed by ut ("that"), which parallels the Hebrew ki 'im le- construction more closely than the LXX's shift in verb form.