Deuteronomy 16:7

Summary

Deuteronomy 16:7 instructs that the sacrificial animal (implied from the wider Passover context) is to be cooked and eaten at the place Yehovah chooses, after which the person is to turn in the morning and return to his tents. The verse uses a chain of sequential verb forms describing successive actions.

Key words

• vishalTa ("you will cook", H1310) — piel (intensive) sequential perfect; the piel stem intensifies the basic action of boiling/cooking, continuing the narrative sequence begun earlier in the passage.
• yivChar ("he will choose", H0977) — qal imperfect, marking an action not yet completed or ongoing, referring to Yehovah's choice of place.
• Yehovah (H3068G) 'eloHeikha ("your God", H0430G) — construct plural noun with pronominal suffix "your" (H9021), forming the phrase "Yehovah your God."
• faNita ("you will turn", H6437G) — qal sequential perfect, continuing the chain of instructions after eating.
• 'ohaLeikha ("your tents", H0168G) — masculine plural construct noun with suffix "your," referring to the tents to which one returns.

What the text says

The verse is built as a chain of sequential perfect verbs (vishalTa, 'Akhalta, faNita, halakhTa), each joined by the narrative vav (H9001). This grammatical pattern presents a series of actions understood to follow one another in time: cooking, eating, turning, and going. The sequential perfect form in Biblical Hebrew narrative typically continues a chain of commands or events already established, so this verse depends on the preceding verses for its full sense of sequence.

The clause ba-maKom 'aSher yivChar Yehovah 'eloHeikha bo ("in the place which Yehovah your God will choose in it") uses the qal imperfect yivChar to indicate a choice that is not tied to a single completed moment — it may describe an ongoing or repeated selection rather than a one-time past event. The final pronominal suffix bo ("in it," H9033) refers back to maKom ("place," H4725), reinforcing the location just named.

The final action, halakhTa le-'ohaLeikha ("you will go to your tents"), uses the construct plural noun 'ohaLeikha with the second-person suffix, denoting the individual's own dwelling structures, plural in form.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the sequence with two verbs, ἑψήσεις ("you will boil") and ὀπτήσεις ("you will roast"), where the Hebrew has only one verb, vishalTa ("you will cook," H1310). The Vulgate follows the Hebrew more closely with a single verb, coques ("you will cook"). Additionally, where the Hebrew and Vulgate speak of returning to "tents" ('ohaLeikha / tabernacula tua), the LXX uses οἴκους ("houses") instead of a term for tents.