Deuteronomy 12:10

Summary

The verse describes a future sequence of events: crossing the Jordan, settling in the land, receiving rest from surrounding enemies, and dwelling in security. The land is identified as what Yehovah, God of the people, is giving as an inheritance.

Key words

• 'a.var.Tem ("you will pass over", H5674A) — qal sequential perfect, 2nd person masculine plural, continuing a chain of future actions initiated earlier in the passage.
• man.Chil ("[is] giving as an inheritance", H5157) — hiphil (causative) participle, masculine singular, describing Yehovah as the one actively causing the people to inherit; the participle form marks this as an ongoing or characteristic action rather than a single completed event.
• he.Ni.ach ("he will give rest", H5117) — hiphil sequential perfect, 3rd person masculine singular, causative form indicating Yehovah is the agent who produces "rest" for the people.
• 'o.ye.vei. ("enemies", H0341) — qal participle, masculine plural construct, literally "the ones being hostile," grammatically linked to the following suffix "your" (Khem, H9026).
• Be.tach ("security", H0983) — masculine singular noun, used adverbially at the end of the clause to describe the manner of dwelling.

What the text says

The verse is built as a chain of four sequential perfect verbs joined by the narrative va/vi ("and", H9001): 'a.var.Tem ("you will pass over"), shav.Tem ("you will dwell"), he.Ni.ach ("he will give rest"), and shav.tem ("you will dwell") again. This grammatical chaining (the "sequential perfect" construction) presents the actions as a linked sequence of future events rather than isolated statements — crossing leads to dwelling, which is followed by rest, which results in dwelling securely. The repetition of shav.Tem/shav.tem ("you will dwell", H3427) at both the second and second-to-last positions frames the "rest" clause as the condition that transforms mere dwelling into secure dwelling.

The relative clause "which Yehovah your God is giving as an inheritance" uses the participle man.Chil (H5157), a hiphil form built from the root meaning "to inherit," here in its causative sense "to cause to inherit." As a participle, it presents Yehovah's giving as a continuous or defining characteristic tied to the land, rather than a single past act. Similarly, he.Ni.ach (H5117) is a hiphil form of a root related to rest, again framing Yehovah as the causer of the people's rest from enemies.

The phrase "from all your enemies around" uses 'o.ye.vei.Khem (H0341 + H9026), a construct chain literally "enemies of you," modified by mi.sa.Viv ("from round about", H5439G), indicating enemies positioned on every side.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders man.Chil ("is giving as an inheritance") with the present tense verb κατακληρονομεῖ, matching the participial, ongoing sense of the Hebrew. The Vulgate instead uses a future periphrastic, "daturus est" ("is about to give"), shifting the nuance toward a future single act rather than a continuous characteristic. The Vulgate also renders Be.tach ("security") as "absque ullo timore" ("without any fear"), an interpretive expansion not present as a separate lexical item in the Hebrew, which simply states "security" as a noun modifying the dwelling.