Deuteronomy 19:7

Summary

The verse opens with a causal connector linking back to the preceding legal context, then Moses (or Yehovah through Moses) declares in first person that he is commanding the addressee to set apart three cities. The command uses two verb forms — a present participle for the act of commanding and a future/durative verb for the act of setting apart the cities.

Key words

• 'al-ken ("therefore", H5921A + H3651C) — a two-word causal phrase joining this verse to what precedes; it signals logical consequence rather than mere sequence.
• 'anokhi ("I", H0595) — an independent personal pronoun used alongside the verb, adding emphasis on the speaker's identity as the one commanding.
• metzavekha ("commanding you", H6680) — piel participle, masculine singular construct with pronominal suffix; the piel stem marks intensive/directive action, and the participle form presents the commanding as an ongoing, present act rather than a completed one.
• tavdil ("you will set apart", H0914) — hiphil imperfect; the hiphil stem is causative ("cause to be separate"), and the imperfect aspect marks an action pending or to be carried out, matching English future/subjunctive "shall set apart."
• lakh ("for yourself", H9031 with H9005) — preposition plus second-person suffix, indicating the action's benefit or direction is toward the addressee himself.

What the text says

The sentence divides into two clauses joined by le'mor ("saying", H0559), a qal infinitive that functions here as a quotation marker introducing the content of the command. The first clause — 'al-ken 'anokhi metzavekha — establishes the speaker's authority and the causal link to prior material using the independent pronoun 'anokhi together with the participle metzavekha, a construction that in Biblical Hebrew often marks solemn or formal pronouncement. The second clause — shalosh 'arim tavdil lakh — places the object shalosh 'arim ("three cities", H7969 + H5892B) before the verb tavdil, a word order that gives prominence to the object of the action. The hiphil form tavdil frames the setting-apart of cities as a caused, deliberate separation rather than a simple designation, and the reflexive-benefactive lakh ties the outcome back to the addressee's own use or benefit.

Differences between versions

The Septuagint adds τὸ ῥῆμα τοῦτο ("this word/matter") after the verb of commanding, a phrase with no counterpart in the Hebrew text, which reads only le'mor ("saying"). The Vulgate expands the final clause with æqualis inter se spatii ("of equal distance between themselves"), specifying a detail about the spacing of the three cities that is not present in the Hebrew shalosh 'arim tavdil lakh.