Deuteronomy 11:15

Summary

This verse continues a divine promise: Yehovah says he will provide grass in the fields for the addressee's livestock, and the addressee will eat and be satisfied. The sentence sits inside a chain of sequential actions (rain → grass → eating → satisfaction), each verb form building on the one before.

Key words

• na.ta.Ti ("I will give", H5414G) — qal sequential perfect, 1st person singular; continues a preceding chain (likely a prior promise, such as rain), marking Yehovah as the one who gives.
• 'E.sev ("grass", H6212) — masculine singular noun, the direct object being given.
• sa.de.kha ("your field", H7704G) — construct form with pronominal suffix, meaning "the field of you," i.e., "your field."
• v.hem.Te.kha ("your cattle", H0929) — construct form with pronominal suffix, "the cattle of you," identifying the beneficiary of the grass.
• 'a.khal.Ta ("you will eat", H0398) and sa.Va.'e.ta ("you will be satisfied", H7646) — both qal sequential perfects, 2nd person masculine singular, continuing the same chain begun with na.ta.Ti.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built entirely from sequential perfect verbs (ve + perfect), a form that in Deuteronomy's promise-sequences links one action to the next as consequences unfolding in time: "I will give... and you will eat... and you will be satisfied." The subject of the giving is grammatically Yehovah (1st person singular, na.ta.Ti), while the eating and being satisfied are attributed to the addressee in 2nd person masculine singular — the same person being spoken to throughout the passage, not the cattle. The grass itself is given "in your field" (be-sadekha) "for your cattle" (li-vhemtekha), so the immediate object of the grass is the livestock, but the final two verbs ('a.khal.Ta, sa.Va.'e.ta) shift back to describe the human addressee's own eating and satisfaction, distinct from the animals' feeding.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the opening verb as δώσει ("he/it will give"), a 3rd person singular form, where the Hebrew na.ta.Ti is 1st person singular ("I will give"), shifting the grammatical subject of the giving away from a direct first-person divine statement. The LXX also uses χορτάσματα ("fodder," plural) for 'esev ("grass," singular). The Vulgate adds an explanatory clause, "ut ipsi comedatis ac saturemini" ("so that you yourselves eat and are satisfied"), making explicit that the eating belongs to the human addressee, which matches the Hebrew's 2nd person forms 'a.khal.Ta and sa.Va.'e.ta but is stated more directly than the Hebrew's simple sequential chain.