Deuteronomy 12:20

Summary

The verse describes a future condition: when Yehovah expands the territory of the addressee as promised, the person may express a desire ("I want to eat meat") arising from an appetite for meat, and is permitted to eat meat according to that desire. The structure moves from a conditional clause about territorial expansion to a second conditional clause about personal craving, followed by permission.

Key words

• yar.Chiv ("he will enlarge", H7337) — Hiphil (causative) imperfect: Yehovah is the causative agent who "makes wide" the territory, not merely that it grows on its own.
• dibber ("he spoke", H1696I) — Piel perfect of the root for "to speak," here intensified; refers to a completed prior act of speaking/promising by Yehovah.
• te'avveh ("it will desire", H0183) — Piel imperfect, third person feminine, agreeing with nephesh ("appetite/soul"); the craving is grammatically attributed to the nephesh, not directly to the person.
• nafshekha ("your appetite/soul", H5315L + H9021) — construct + suffix, repeated twice in the verse, anchoring the desire for meat in the nephesh rather than in a general verb of wanting.
• tokhal ("you will eat", H0398) — Qal imperfect, second masculine singular; the final verb resolving the conditional chain into permitted action.

What the text says

The verse is built on a double conditional structure introduced twice by ki ("if/that", H3588A): first, the enlargement of territory by Yehovah (yarchiv Yehovah Elohekha et-gevulkha, "he will enlarge Yehovah your God your territory"), qualified by ka'asher dibber-lakh ("as he spoke to you"), referencing a prior spoken promise. Second, a further ki clause introduces the condition of craving: te'avveh nafshekha le'ekhol basar ("your appetite will desire to eat meat"). Grammatically, the desire is not assigned to "you" as subject but to nafesh ("appetite/soul", H5315L), a feminine noun controlling the feminine verb te'avveh.

The sequence ve'amarta ("and you will say", sequential perfect) links the territorial expansion to a spoken declaration, okhlah basar ("I want to eat meat"), where okhlah (H0398) appears as an infinitive form expressing intention ("to eat" or "in eating"). The final clause repeats the vocabulary of desire and eating with intensifying repetition: be-khol avvat nafshekha tokhal basar ("in all the desire of your appetite you will eat meat"), stacking the construct chain avvat nafshekha ("desire of your appetite") to emphasize the scope of the craving that the eating corresponds to. The imperfect tokhal at the end functions as permission/possibility within this conditional frame, following the two prior ki clauses that set up the circumstances under which eating meat is described as occurring.