Deuteronomy 26:15

Summary

This verse is a petition asking Yehovah to look down from his holy dwelling and bless the people of Israel and the land he gave them, in fulfillment of the oath sworn to the ancestors, described as a land flowing with milk and honey.

Key words

• hashkifa ("look down", H8259) — Hiphil (causative) imperative with a paragogic he (H9012) attached, an emphatic particle intensifying the plea for Yehovah to direct his gaze downward.
• me'on kodshecha ("habitation of your holiness", H4583 + H6944G) — a construct chain meaning "your holy habitation"; kodshecha itself is a construct noun carrying the possessive suffix -cha ("your").
• min-hashamayim ("from the heavens", H4480A + H8064) — a second prepositional phrase in apposition to me'on kodshecha, clarifying that the holy dwelling is located in the heavens.
• varekh ("bless", H1288) — Piel (intensive) imperative, paired with hashkifa as the second of two commands addressed to Yehovah.
• zavat chalav udvash ("flowing of milk and honey", H2100G + H2461 + H1706) — a feminine singular participle in construct governing two nouns, describing the land's abundance.

What the text says

The verse opens with two imperative verbs addressed to Yehovah: hashkifa ("look down") and varekh ("bless"), both second-person masculine singular commands. The first imperative carries a paragogic he, a suffix that in Biblical Hebrew often marks heightened emphasis or solemnity in a request. The object of the "looking down" is expressed through two parallel prepositional phrases — mi-me'on kodshecha ("from the habitation of your holiness") and min-hashamayim ("from the heavens") — which stand in apposition, the second phrase specifying the location of the first rather than introducing a separate place.

The second imperative, varekh, governs three objects marked by the direct object particle 'et (H0853, untranslated): "your people," further specified as "Israel," and "the land." The land is qualified by a relative clause, asher natatah lanu ("which you have given to us"), using a Qal perfect verb indicating a completed act. This is followed by a comparative clause, ka'asher nishba'ta la'avoteinu ("as you swore to our fathers"), where nishba'ta is a Niphal perfect, the passive/reflexive stem regularly used for oath-swearing in Hebrew. The land is finally described through a construct participle, zavat ("flowing of"), governing chalav ("milk") and devash ("honey").

Differences between versions

The LXX reads "ἔδωκας αὐτοῖς" ("you gave to them") where the Hebrew has natata lanu ("you have given to us"), shifting the object pronoun from first-person plural to third-person plural. The LXX also restructures the oath clause with an infinitive, "ὤμοσας... δοῦναι ἡμῖν" ("you swore... to give to us"), adding an infinitive of giving not explicit as a separate verb in the Hebrew clause. The Vulgate renders the two Hebrew prepositional phrases for God's dwelling as "de sanctuario tuo, et de excelso caelorum habitaculo" ("from your sanctuary, and from the high dwelling of the heavens"), inserting "excelso" ("high"), a word with no corresponding lexical item in the Hebrew text.