Deuteronomy 26:18

Summary

The verse states that Yehovah has formally declared on "this day" (ha-Yom, H3117G) that the people addressed will become for him a "treasured possession" ('am segullah), matching what he had previously spoken, and that they are to keep all his commandments.

Key words

• he'emirekha ("he has declared you", H0559) — hiphil perfect of a root whose basic sense is "to say"; the causative stem here produces a declarative/performative sense, "he has caused to be said" or "he has declared," rather than a simple act of speaking.
• lihyot ("to become/to be", H1961) — qal infinitive construct, expressing purpose or result: the goal or outcome of Yehovah's declaration.
• le'am segullah ("into a people of possession", H5971A + H5459) — construct chain: 'am ("people," construct form "people of") governs segullah ("possession"), together meaning a people set apart as a special possession.
• ka'asher dibber ("as he spoke", H0834D + H1696I) — relative particle plus piel perfect of "to speak," marking correspondence between the present declaration and an earlier spoken promise.
• lishmor ("to keep", H8104G) — qal infinitive construct parallel to lihyot, giving a second purpose clause dependent on the same construction: becoming a treasured people and keeping the commandments are presented as parallel infinitival goals.

What the text says

The clause opens with va-Yehovah ("and Yehovah") as subject, followed immediately by the hiphil verb he'emirekha, "he has declared you," with the pronominal suffix -kha ("you," masculine singular) as object marked directly on the verb. The temporal phrase ha-Yom ("this day") situates the declaration in the immediate present of the speech. Two purpose infinitives follow, both introduced by the preposition le- ("to"): lihyot lo le-'am segullah ("to become for him a people of possession") and, after a comparative clause, ve-lishmor kol-mitzvotav ("and to keep all his commandments"). These two infinitives are grammatically parallel, both dependent on the main verb he'emirekha, indicating that the outcome of the declaration has two facets — status as a treasured people and observance of commandments.

The comparative clause ka'asher dibber lakh ("as he spoke to you") uses the piel perfect dibber, an intensive form of "to speak," and anchors the present declaration to a prior spoken statement, without specifying its location elsewhere in the text. The construct chains 'am segullah and kol-mitzvotav ("all his commandments") show typical Hebrew genitive relationships: the first noun is grammatically bound to and defined by the second.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew verb he'emirekha (H0559, hiphil of "to say") is rendered in the LXX as εἵλατό ("he chose") and in the Vulgate as elegit ("he chose"), both conveying selection rather than the Hebrew's causative-declarative sense of "he has declared/caused to be said." The Vulgate adds peculiaris ("peculiar/particular") to render segullah, paralleling the LXX's simpler λαὸν ("people") without an explicit equivalent for "possession" in that specific clause, unlike the Hebrew's explicit construct 'am segullah.