Deuteronomy 2:18

Summary

The verse addresses the listener directly, announcing that on "this day" (ha-yom, H3117G) he is about to cross the border territory of Moab, at the place called Ar ('Ar, H6144). It functions as a divine instruction marking a specific moment of geographic transition.

Key words

• 'a.Tah ("you", H0859A) — independent personal pronoun, placing emphasis on the addressee as the subject of the action.
• 'o.Ver ("[are] about to pass over", H5674A) — qal participle, describing an action in progress or imminent, not a completed act; this gives the sense "you are (now) crossing" rather than a simple future.
• ge.Vul ("[the] border of", H1366G) — construct noun, syntactically bound to the following name Mo'av, forming the phrase "border of Moab."
• 'et- (H0853) — the direct object marker, appearing twice, marking both "the border of Moab" and "Ar" as objects of the verb 'o.Ver.
• 'Ar ("Ar", H6144) — proper name of a place, appearing as a second object marked by 'et-.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence opens with the independent pronoun 'a.Tah ("you"), which is grammatically unnecessary since the verb form could stand alone, but its presence adds emphasis on the addressee. The verb 'o.Ver is a qal participle, a verbal form that in Hebrew often expresses an action currently unfolding or about to happen, rather than a straightforward future tense — this nuance ("you are crossing" / "about to cross") is not always visible in translations that render it as a simple future ("you will cross").

The temporal phrase ha-yom ("this day", H3117G) anchors the action to a specific, immediate moment. The syntax then presents two objects marked by the untranslated object marker 'et-: first "the border of Moab" (ge.Vul mo.'Av, a construct chain meaning "border of Moab"), and second "Ar" ('Ar). The construct form ge.Vul links tightly to Mo'av, producing a single compound idea, "Moab's-border," which is then followed by "Ar" as an additional, separately marked object.

The Hebrew presents these as two distinct objects of the same verb — the border of Moab, and Ar — without an explicit connector between them, leaving their precise relationship (e.g., whether Ar sits at/on that border, or is a separate reference point) to be inferred from context rather than stated by the grammar itself.

Differences between versions

The LXX (Septuagint) reads τὴν Σηείρ ("Seir") where the Hebrew text has 'Ar (H6144, "Ar"), a divergence in the place name. The Vulgate renders the phrase as "urbem nomine Ar" ("the city named Ar"), explicitly interpreting 'Ar as a city name, whereas the Hebrew simply presents 'Ar as a bare proper noun marked by 'et-, without the explanatory "city named" framing. The Spanish SBLIBRE renders the two objects as "Ar, la frontera de Moab," reversing the order found in the Hebrew word sequence (border of Moab / Ar) and treating "border of Moab" as an appositional description of Ar rather than as two separate marked objects.