Deuteronomy 11:23

Summary

The verse states that Yehovah will dispossess all the nations currently before the Israelites, and that they in turn will take possession of nations greater and mightier than themselves. The sentence is built as two parallel actions connected by sequential verb forms, forming a cause-and-result chain.

Key words

• ho.Rish ("he will dispossess", H3423H) — hiphil (causative) sequential perfect; the causative stem marks Yehovah as the one who causes the nations to be dispossessed, distinct from Israel's own action below.
• Yah.weh ("Yehovah", H3068G) — proper name functioning as subject of the first verb; the causative action is attributed specifically to this name.
• rish.Tem ("you will dispossess", H3423H) — same root as word 2, but here in qal (simple, non-causative) stem, sequential perfect, with a plural "you" subject; Israel performs the same verbal action directly, without a causative agent.
• go.Yim ("nations", H1471A) — appears twice (word 7 and word 16), masculine plural, once with the definite article and demonstrative ("these nations," referring to current inhabitants) and once without article ("nations," referring to a broader/future category).
• 'a.tzu.Mim ("mighty", H6099) — adjective, masculine plural, paired with ge.do.Lim ("great", H1419A) to describe the nations Israel will dispossess, followed by the comparative preposition mi.Kem ("more than you", H9036).

What the text says

The verse divides into two clauses joined by the narrative vav (H9001), each containing a form of the root rash (H3423) — first as hiphil (ho.Rish, "he will dispossess") with Yehovah as subject, then as qal (rish.Tem, "you will dispossess") with the plural "you" as subject. This root repetition, visible only in Hebrew, creates a structural parallel: the same underlying action (dispossession) is first caused by Yehovah acting on "these nations" (marked with the definite article and demonstrative 'Eleh, H0428, pointing to specific, currently known nations), and then carried out by Israel upon "nations" without the article — a less specified, generalized reference.

The phrase mi-li-f'nei-khem ("from before you", H9006+H9005+H6440G+H9026) uses a compound preposition built on panim ("face," H6440G) in construct form, literally "from the face of you," a common Hebrew idiom for removal from someone's presence. The concluding comparison go.yim ge.do.lim va-'a.tzu.mim mi.kem ("nations great and mighty more-than-you") places the adjectives before the comparative phrase, with the preposition mi (H9006) here functioning as "more than" rather than "from," a semantic shift in the same preposition used earlier in the verse.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders ho.Rish (hiphil, "dispossess") as ἐκβαλεῖ ("will drive out/expel"), a slightly different nuance emphasizing expulsion rather than causing loss of possession. The Vulgate uses disperdet ("will destroy/ruin utterly"), which conveys a stronger sense of destruction than the Hebrew root rash (H3423), which centers on dispossession/inheritance rather than annihilation.