Deuteronomy 26:7
וַנִּצְעַק אֶל־יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵי אֲבֹתֵינוּ וַיִּשְׁמַע יְהוָה אֶת־קֹלֵנוּ וַיַּרְא אֶת־עָנְיֵנוּ וְאֶת־עֲמָלֵנוּ וְאֶת־לַחֲצֵֽנוּ׃
✦ Hebrew interlinear
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✦ The same verse in five languages
וַנִּצְעַ֕ק אֶל־יְהוָ֖ה אֱלֹהֵ֣י אֲבֹתֵ֑ינוּ וַיִּשְׁמַ֤ע יְהוָה֙ אֶת־קֹלֵ֔נוּ וַיַּ֧רְא אֶת־עָנְיֵ֛נוּ וְאֶת־עֲמָלֵ֖נוּ וְאֶת־לַחֲצֵֽנוּ׃
καὶ ἀνεβοήσαμεν πρὸς Κύριον τὸν θεὸν ἡμῶν, καὶ εἰσήκουσεν κύριος τῆς φωνῆς ἡμῶν, καὶ ἴδεν τὴν ταπείνωσιν ἡμῶν καὶ τὸν θλιμμὸν ἡμῶν·
Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0
Latin (Vulgate)
et clamavimus ad Dominum Deum patrum nostrorum: qui exaudivit nos, et respexit humilitatem nostram, et laborem, atque angustiam:
Entonces clamamos a Yehová, el Dios de nuestros padres. Yehová escuchó nuestra voz y vio nuestra aflicción, nuestro trabajo y nuestra opresión.
Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)
Y clamamos á Jehová Dios de nuestros padres; y oyó Jehová nuestra voz, y vió nuestra aflicción, y nuestro trabajo, y nuestra opresión:
So we called out to the LORD, the God of our fathers; and the LORD heard our voice and saw our affliction, toil, and oppression.
✦ What the text says
Summary
Deuteronomy 26:7 recounts that the ancestors cried out to Yehovah, the God of their fathers, and that Yehovah responded by hearing their voice and seeing their affliction, toil, and oppression. The verse is structured as a chain of narrative actions describing both the human appeal and the divine response.
Key words
- nitz.'Ak ("we cried out", H6817) — qal narrative verb, first person plural, opening the sequence of events with the people's action.
- 'e.lo.Hei ("God of", H0430G) — construct plural noun linking Yehovah to the following genitive, "ancestors."
- 'a.vo.Tei.nu ("our ancestors", H0001G + H9025) — construct plural noun with pronominal suffix, identifying whose God is invoked.
- i.yish.Ma' ("he heard", H8085G) — qal narrative verb, third person masculine singular, marking Yehovah's first responsive action.
- ko.Le.nu ("our voice", H6963A + H9025) — construct singular noun with suffix, functioning as direct object of "he heard," marked by 'et- (H0853).
What the text says
The verse follows a strict narrative chain using the vav-conversive pattern (va- + prefixed verb), which in Biblical Hebrew signals sequential past action: "we cried out" (nitz.'Ak), then "he heard" (i.yish.Ma'), then "he saw" (i.Yar'). This chaining produces a cause-and-effect structure: the human outcry precedes and triggers the divine perception. The subject of the first verb is "we" (the people), while Yehovah becomes the subject of the two following verbs, creating a clear shift in agency within the sentence.
The object of "he saw" is expressed through three parallel construct nouns — 'a.ne.Ye.nu ("our affliction", H6040), 'a.ma.Le.nu ("our toil", H5999), and la.cha.Tze.nu ("our oppression", H3906) — each attached to the pronominal suffix -nu ("our", H9025) and each introduced by the object marker 'et- (H0853). This triple structure, joined by the conjunction ve- ("and", H9002), builds a cumulative description of hardship rather than a single term, giving weight to the totality of the people's condition as perceived by Yehovah.
Differences between versions
The LXX (Swete) renders only two of the three Hebrew nouns describing hardship: τὴν ταπείνωσιν ("the humiliation/affliction") and τὸν θλιμμὸν ("the affliction/oppression"), corresponding to 'a.ne.Ye.nu and apparently combining or omitting 'a.ma.Le.nu ("toil"). The Vulgate, by contrast, preserves three terms — humilitatem ("affliction"), laborem ("labor/toil"), and angustiam ("distress/oppression") — matching the threefold Hebrew structure more closely than the LXX text given here.
This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.