Deuteronomy 18:6

Summary

Deuteronomy 18:6 describes the case of a Levite who leaves one of the towns of Israel where he has been residing and travels, moved by his own full desire, to the place that Yehovah will choose. The verse sets up a conditional scenario using two verbs of "coming," describing both the Levite's departure and his arrival.

Key words

• khi- ("if", H3588A) — introduces the conditional clause governing the whole verse; marks this as a hypothetical/legal case.
• gar ("sojourning", H1481A) — qal participle, masculine singular; describes the Levite's ongoing state of dwelling in a town, not a completed action but a continuous condition "there."
• 'avat ("desire of", H0185) and naf.sh-o ("his self/soul", H5315L) — both in construct chain, together meaning "the desire of his soul"; the construct binds them into a single intensified expression of personal will.
• yivchar ("he will choose", H0977) — qal imperfect, third masculine singular; expresses Yehovah's future/ongoing act of choosing the place, syntactically parallel to yavo at the verse's start.
• Yehovah (H3068) — the subject of the final relative clause, identifying whose choice determines the destination.

What the text says

The verse opens with the conditional particle khi- ("if", H3588A) followed by yavo ("he will come", H0935G) in the imperfect, setting the Levite's movement as a future/ongoing possibility. The phrase me-'achad sha'areikha mikkol Yisra'el ("from one of your gates, from all Israel") locates his town of origin using two nested construct chains ('achad + sha'arei-kha, then kol + Yisra'el). The relative clause asher hu gar sham ("where he was sojourning there") uses the participle gar (H1481A) to depict continuous residence rather than a single event.

The narrative vav on u-va ("and he will come", H0935G, sequential perfect) introduces a second "coming," grammatically distinct from the first (yavo, imperfect) though sharing the same root. This repetition of the root H0935G — once as imperfect, once as vav-sequential perfect — frames the movement as a two-stage event: departure from the town, then arrival at the chosen place. The construct chain kol 'avat nafsh-o ("all the desire of his soul") intensifies the manner of this second arrival, emphasizing personal will. The destination clause 'el ha-maqom 'asher yivchar Yehovah mirrors the earlier relative clause structure ('asher + imperfect verb), naming Yehovah as the one who yivchar ("will choose", H0977) the place.

Differences between versions

The LXXSWETE renders gar ("sojourning", H1481A) as παροικεῖ, a term for resident-alien dwelling, while the Vulgate uses the more general habitat ("dwells"). The Vulgate also adds an explicit clause, et voluerit venire ("and he shall wish to come"), which is not a separate verb in the Hebrew but expands the sense carried by u-va combined with "the desire of his soul." The Hebrew's second-person possessive on sha'areikha ("your gates") is preserved in the Vulgate (urbium tuarum) but not reflected as a possessive in the LXX's τῶν πόλεων ("the cities").