Deuteronomy 10:15

Summary

The verse states that Yehovah's attachment (chashaq, H2836A) was specifically directed toward the ancestors, leading him to love them, and that he subsequently chose their descendants — the audience being addressed — over all other peoples, a situation described as continuing "as this day."

Key words

rak ("only", H7535) — a restrictive adverb that narrows the scope of the sentence: it isolates the ancestors as the specific object of the action, excluding other possible referents.

chashaq ("he loved / he was attached to", H2836A) — qal perfect, third person masculine singular, describing a completed action by Yehovah toward the ancestors; the perfect aspect presents this as a settled, accomplished fact.

le'ahavah ("to love", H0157G) — qal infinitive with the preposition le ("to"), expressing purpose or result: the attachment (chashaq) had the aim/effect of loving them.

vayyivchar ("and he chose", H0977) — qal verb in narrative form (vav + prefix conjugation), continuing the sequence of action: after the attachment/love toward the ancestors, the narrative moves to a second act, the choosing of the descendants.

zar'am ("their offspring", H2233H) — construct noun with third person plural suffix, identifying the object of the choosing as the seed/descendants of the ancestors mentioned earlier, later specified as "you" (bakhem, H9036 with H9003+article).

What the text says

The sentence divides into two coordinated clauses joined by the narrative vav on vayyivchar. The first clause has rak ("only") restricting focus onto "your ancestors" (ba'avoteikha, from H0001G with pronominal suffix), stating that Yehovah "loved" (chashaq, completed action) with the stated purpose "to love them" (le'ahavah otam). The doubling of the root for "love" — chashaq followed by the infinitive le'ahavah — creates an emphatic construction: the attachment itself was for the purpose of loving.

The second clause shifts subject-object structure: Yehovah "chose" (vayyivchar) not the ancestors directly but "their offspring" (bezar'am), specified further as "after them" (achareihem) and then identified explicitly as "you" (bakhem, second person plural). This chosen group is set "from among all the peoples" (mikkol ha'ammim), with kol ("all", H3605) in construct governing "the peoples" (ha'ammim, H5971A). The phrase kayom hazzeh ("as this day", H3117L + H2088) closes the verse, anchoring the described state of affairs to the present moment of the speaker.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders chashaq ("loved/was attached to") with προείλατο ("he preferred/chose beforehand"), a different semantic emphasis than the Hebrew root's connotation of attachment, and duplicates πλήν ("only") at the start. The Vulgate renders chashaq as "conglutinatus est" ("was joined/glued to"), a physical metaphor absent from the Hebrew lexeme itself, then adds "amavit eos" ("he loved them") as a separate clause corresponding to the Hebrew infinitive le'ahavah otam.