Deuteronomy 11:8

Summary

Deuteronomy 11:8 instructs the audience to keep the entire commandment being given to them, stating that this observance is connected to their strength, their entry into the land, and their taking possession of it. The verse links obedience with a sequence of future actions: strengthening, crossing over, and possessing.

Key words

• shemarTem ("you will keep", H8104G) — qal sequential perfect, continuing the narrative chain begun by the vav; addressed to the plural "you."
• mitzVah ("commandment", H4687) — feminine singular noun, governed by kol ("all", H3605) in construct form, producing "all of the commandment."
• metzave ("commanding", H6680) — piel participle, construct form, expressing an ongoing action ("the one commanding") rather than a single past command.
• lema'an ("so that", H4616) — subordinating particle introducing the purpose/result clause that follows.
• techezKu ("you may be strong", H2388G) — qal jussive, plural, expressing a wished-for or purposed state tied grammatically to the lema'an clause.

What the text says

The verse opens with a narrative vav attached to shemarTem ("you will keep", H8104G), continuing a sequence of instructions from the preceding verses. The object is kol-hamitzVah ("all the commandment", H3605 + H4687), a construct phrase meaning the whole of the commandment, not merely a part. This commandment is qualified by the relative clause asher anoKhi metzaveKha hayYom ("which I am commanding you today"), where metzave (H6680) is a piel participle — grammatically presenting the command as an ongoing act of the speaker rather than a completed event.

The purpose clause introduced by lema'an ("so that", H4616) connects obedience to the jussive verb techezKu ("you may be strong", H2388G), a qal jussive form expressing an intended or desired outcome rather than a simple future fact. This is followed by two more sequential perfects, vaTem ("you will go", H0935G) and virishTem ("you will take possession of", H3423H), each linked by the narrative vav, continuing the chain of consequence: strength leads to entering, and entering leads to possessing.

The land is further specified by the relative clause asher atem ovRim shamma lerishTah ("where you are about to pass over there, to possess it"), where ovRim (H5674A) is a participle indicating an action in progress or imminent, and the final infinitive rishTah ("to take possession of it", H3423H) restates the purpose of the crossing using the same root as virishTem earlier in the verse.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders kol-hamitzVah ("all the commandment") as πάσας τὰς ἐντολὰς αὐτοῦ ("all his commandments"), plural rather than the singular collective mitzVah in the Hebrew, and adds αὐτοῦ ("his"), a possessive not present in the Hebrew text. Where the Hebrew has techezKu ("you may be strong"), the LXX reads ζῆτε καὶ πολυπλασιασθῆτε ("you may live and be multiplied"), introducing an additional idea of increase not present in the Hebrew verb. The LXX also adds τὸν Ἱορδάνην ("the Jordan") explicitly, specifying the river being crossed, while the Hebrew simply says atem ovRim shamma ("you are passing over there") without naming the Jordan.