Deuteronomy 12:32

Summary

This verse commands the audience to observe and perform everything commanded, using an emphatic word order that places the object before the verb. It closes with a double prohibition against adding to or subtracting from the commanded content.

Key words

• da.Var ("word", H1697I) — in construct with kol ("every/all", H3605), forming "all the word/matter," referring to a single collective commanded content rather than seperate words.
• me.tza.Veh ("[am] commanding", H6680) — Piel participle, indicating an action presented as ongoing or characteristic ("the one commanding"), not a completed past action.
• tish.me.Ru ("you will take care", H8104J) — Qal imperfect, second person masculine plural, expressing a future/ongoing obligation to observe.
• to.Sef ("you must add", H3254H) — Hiphil (causative) jussive form; combined with the negation lo' (H3808) immediately before it, this constructs a prohibition ("you shall not add").
• tig.Ra' ("you must diminish", H1639) — Qal imperfect, paired with ve.lo' ("and not") to form the second half of the prohibition, mirroring the structure of to.Sef.

What the text says

The verse opens with the direct object marker 'et (H0853, untranslated) attached to kol-ha-davar, marking "all the word/matter" as the grammatical object of the entire sentence, though its verb appears only later. The relative clause 'a.Sher 'a.no.Khi me.tza.Veh 'et.Khem ("which I am commanding you") uses a participle (me.tza.Veh) rather than a finite past-tense verb, which in Hebrew syntax often conveys an action in progress or an ongoing charge, not a single historical event of commanding.

The object pronoun 'o.T-o ("it", from 'et + suffix) is placed before its governing verb tish.me.Ru ("you will take care"), producing a word order (object–verb) that diverges from the more neutral verb–object order. This fronting foregrounds "it" — the aforementioned "word" — as the point of focus. The infinitive la.'a.Sot ("to do") complements tish.me.Ru, together yielding "you shall take care to do."

The closing prohibition uses two parallel negative clauses: lo'-to.Sef 'a.La-v ("you shall not add to it") and ve.lo' tig.Ra' mi.Me.nu ("and you shall not diminish from it"). The first verb, to.Sef, is Hiphil (causative stem), while the second, tig.Ra', is Qal (simple stem) — a stem alternation that the English glosses do not distinguish, though both function as prohibitions when preceded by lo'.

Differences between versions

The LXX (Swete) includes σήμερον ("today"), a temporal marker with no corresponding word in the Hebrew text as segmented here. The Vulgate renders the audience as singular ("tibi", "to you") where the Hebrew 'et.Khem and the LXX's ὑμῖν are plural. The Vulgate also adds "Domino" ("to the Lord"), an object phrase not present in the Hebrew or the LXX segmentation given.