Deuteronomy 2:3

Summary

Deuteronomy 2:3 records a divine instruction to stop circling a particular hill country and instead turn northward. The verse combines a statement that the circling has been sufficient with a direct command to change direction.

Key words

• rav ("[is] enough", H7227A) — an adjective functioning predicatively at the head of the clause, expressing sufficiency without a verb "to be."
• so ("going round", H5437H) — a qal infinitive that names the action ("circling") which is declared sufficient; infinitives in Hebrew can function as verbal nouns.
• har ("hill country", H2022H) — a masculine singular noun marked definite by the article ha (H9009), referring to a specific, identified elevated terrain.
• penu ("turn", H6437G) — a qal imperative, masculine plural, directly commanding the addressees to change direction.
• tzafonah ("north", H6828G) with the directional he (H9011) — the noun for "north" plus a suffix indicating motion "toward" that direction, common in Biblical Hebrew for spatial goals.

What the text says

The verse opens with rav ("enough", H7227A) followed by the preposition la ("for", H9005) plus the suffix khem ("you," H9036), forming the phrase "enough for you." This adjectival predicate takes the infinitive so ("going round," H5437H) as its subject-complement, so the construction literally reads "enough for you [is] the going-around of this hill country" — the direct object marker 'et (H0853) signals that ha-har ha-zeh ("this hill country," H2022H + H2088) is the object of the circling action, even though the verb form here is an infinitive rather than a finite verb.

The second half of the verse shifts to direct address with the imperative penu ("turn," H6437G), repeating the same preposition-plus-suffix combination lakhem ("for/to yourselves") seen earlier, which in this position emphasizes the addressees turning for their own movement. The final word combines tzafonah ("north," H6828G) with the directional he (H9011), a common Hebrew method of indicating "toward the north" without requiring a separate preposition of direction. The sentence structure thus moves from a declarative statement about sufficiency (using a nominal/infinitive construction) to an imperative command (using a finite verb form), reflecting two distinct grammatical strategies within a single short verse.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders rav-lakhem ("enough for you") with the passive imperative Hikanousthō ("let it be sufficient"), turning the Hebrew's adjectival/nominal declaration into an explicit third-person passive command form. The Vulgate's Sufficit vobis ("it suffices for you") more closely mirrors the Hebrew's stative/adjectival sense. Where the Hebrew uses an infinitive (so, "going round") as the grammatical subject of sufficiency, the LXX uses an infinitive (kykloun, "to encircle") similarly, while the Vulgate uses circuire ("to go around") in the same infinitival role.