Deuteronomy 28:1

Summary

Deuteronomy 28:1 opens a conditional statement: if Israel listens attentively to the voice of Yehovah (H3068) their God and carefully observes all his commandments, then Yehovah will set them above all the nations of the earth. The verse is built as a protasis (the listening condition) followed by a consequence (being placed high above other nations).

Key words

• sha.Mo.a' ("certainly [if] to listen", H8085H) — infinitive absolute placed before the finite verb; it intensifies or emphasizes the verbal action that follows.
• tish.Ma' ("you will listen", H8085H) — qal imperfect, second person masculine singular; paired with the infinitive absolute above to form the emphatic construction "if you truly listen."
• mitz.vo.Ta ("commandments", H4687) — feminine plural construct noun, linked to the following pronominal suffix "his," meaning "his commandments" (referring to Yehovah).
• me.tza.ve. ("[am] commanding", H6680) — piel participle, construct form; expresses ongoing action ("the one commanding you"), distinct from a simple past command.
• el.Yon ("most high", H5945A) — masculine singular adjective describing the position Yehovah will grant, "above" ('al, H5921A) all nations.

What the text says

The verse begins with the narrative vav on ha.Yah ("it will be", H1961), a sequential perfect that continues the flow of the preceding legal material into a new conditional unit introduced by 'im ("if", H0518A). The condition itself uses a grammatical intensifier: the infinitive absolute sha.Mo.a' (H8085H) placed immediately before the imperfect tish.Ma' (H8085H) of the same root. This doubling — infinitive absolute plus finite verb of the same root — is a common Biblical Hebrew device that reinforces the verbal idea, often rendered in translation as "if you indeed listen" or "if you diligently obey," though the Hebrew itself contains no separate adverb; the emphasis is built into the verb form itself.

The object of listening is be-qol Yehovah 'elohekha — "to the voice of Yehovah your God" — using the construct chain qOl ("voice of", H6963A) governing the divine name. The purpose of this listening is expressed through two paired infinitives, li-sh.Mor ("to take care", H8104J) and la-'a.sOt ("to observe/do", H6213A), both governing the direct object marked by 'et (H0853) and the noun phrase "all his commandments" (kol mitz.vo.Ta.v). The relative clause 'a.Sher 'a.no.Khi me.tza.ve.kha ha.Yom ("which I am commanding you today") uses the piel participle me.tza.ve. (H6680), portraying the commanding as a continuous or present action tied to "today" (ha.Yom, H3117G), rather than a completed past act.

The apodosis begins with another sequential perfect, ve-na.Ta.ne.kha ("and he will set you", H5414H), whose subject is again Yehovah 'elohekha. The result described is that Yehovah will place the addressee 'el.Yon ("most high", H5945A) — an adjective, not a verb — "above" ('al) all the nations, using the same construct pattern kol go.Yei ha-'A.retz ("all the nations of the earth") seen earlier with "all his commandments."

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the infinitive-absolute-plus-imperfect construction as ἐὰν ἀκοῇ ἀκούσῃς, a Greek dative-participle idiom mirroring the Hebrew emphatic doubling. Where the Hebrew has mitz.vo.Ta.v ("his commandments," referring back to Yehovah), the LXX reads πάσας τὰς ἐντολὰς ταύτας ("all these commandments"), shifting the possessive reference from Yehovah to a demonstrative pointing at the commandments given by Moses. The Vulgate similarly reads "omnia mandata ejus" ("all his commandments"), agreeing with the Hebrew's third-person possessive rather than the LXX's demonstrative.