Deuteronomy 28:32

Summary

Deuteronomy 28:32 describes a condition in which sons and daughters are handed over to another people, while the eyes of the addressed party watch and grow faint with longing for them all day, without any power to act.

Key words

• ne.tu.Nim ("[will be] given", H5414G) — qal passive participle, masculine plural, indicating an ongoing or repeated state of being handed over, not a single completed act.
• ro.'ot ("[will be] looking", H7200G) — qal participle feminine plural, agreeing with 'ei.Nei.kha ("your eyes"), portraying continuous visual perception rather than a one-time glance.
• kha.Lot ("longing", H3616) — feminine plural adjective, paired with ro.'ot to describe the eyes as both watching and wasting away/yearning.
• 'a.lei.Hem ("to them", H0413 + H9038) — preposition with third-person plural suffix, marking the direction of the longing gaze, toward the sons and daughters mentioned earlier.
• 'Ein le.'El ya.De.kha ("there is no power of your hand", H0369 + H9005 + H0410L + H3027H) — a construct chain built on 'Ein ("there is not"), literally "there is not to the power of your hand," an idiomatic negation expressing complete absence of capacity to act.

What the text says

The verse opens with two construct nouns, ba.Nei.kha ("sons of you") and ve.no.Tei.kha ("and daughters of you"), both plural construct forms bound to the second-person masculine singular suffix kha ("your"). These serve as the subject of the passive participle ne.tu.Nim ("given"), which is followed by le.'Am 'a.Cher ("to a people, another"), an indefinite noun with a following adjective. The passive construction leaves the agent of the giving unexpressed in the Hebrew clause itself.

The second half pivots to 'ei.Nei.kha ("your eyes"), a feminine dual construct noun with the same second-person suffix, paired with two feminine plural participial/adjectival forms: ro.'ot ("looking") and kha.Lot ("longing" or "wasting away"). This pairing describes a single continuous action with two aspects — visual attention and emotional/physical depletion — directed 'a.lei.Hem ("toward them") referring back to the sons and daughters. The phrase kol- ha.Yom ("all the day") uses kol in construct with the definite noun ha.Yom to mark the duration as constant, not intermittent.

The closing clause uses the existential negator 'Ein in construct with le.'El ("to the power of") and ya.De.kha ("your hand"), a fixed idiom expressing total absence of physical or effective capability, rather than a literal reference to hand strength alone.

Differences between versions

The LXX (Swete) omits the opening clause about sons and daughters being given to another people, beginning instead directly with "and your eyes will see, wasting away, looking at them" (καὶ οἱ ὀφθαλμοί σου βλέψονται σφακελίζοντες εἰς αὐτά), and renders the final clause as "your hand will not be strong" (οὐκ ἰσχύσει σου ἡ χείρ), a more verbal rendering compared to the Hebrew's nominal idiom 'Ein le.'El ya.De.kha. The Vulgate follows the Hebrew structure closely, using "tradantur" ("let them be handed over") for the passive participle and "deficientibus" ("failing/growing faint") for kha.Lot, plus "non sit fortitudo in manu tua" ("there be no strength in your hand") for the closing idiom.