Deuteronomy 29:10

Summary

The verse opens a section of Deuteronomy in which the entire people of Israel is described as standing assembled before Yehovah. It lists the categories of people present, moving from the collective "all of you" down to specific leadership groups, and closes by naming "every man of Israel" as included.

Key words

• ni.tza.Vim ("standing", H5324) — niphal participle, masculine plural; describes an ongoing state of being positioned/stationed, not a single completed act of standing.
• li.f.Nei ("before", H6440G with H9005) — construct noun "face of" plus preposition, literally "to the face of," a common idiom for standing in someone's presence.
• ra.shei.khem ("your chiefs", H7218H + H9026) — construct plural noun with 2nd person plural suffix, naming a specific leadership category among those present.
• shiv.tei.khem ("your tribes", H7626H + H9026) — construct plural noun with suffix, listed in sequence with the other leadership terms.
• Sho.te.rei.khem ("your officials", H7860 + H9026) — qal participle used substantively ("the ones who do [administrative duty]"), construct plural with suffix, naming another functional group.

What the text says

The sentence begins with the independent pronoun 'a.Tem ("you," H0859D) followed by the niphal participle ni.tza.Vim ("standing," H5324), establishing the subject and its state before any further modification. The phrase ha.yOm ("this day," H3117G with article) marks the temporal setting, and ku.le.khem ("all of you," H3605 + H9026) intensifies the collective sense of the pronoun already given. The location is expressed through the construct chain li.f.Nei Yehovah 'e.lo.hei.khem ("before Yehovah your God"), where f.Nei ("face of," H6440G) is a construct noun governed by the preposition li ("to," H9005), producing the idiomatic sense of "in the presence of."

After naming the divine presence, the text lists four groups in a chain of construct nouns, each carrying the same 2nd person plural suffix -khem ("your"): ra.shei.khem ("your chiefs"), shiv.tei.khem ("your tribes"), zik.nei.khem ("your elders"), and ve.Sho.te.rei.khem ("and your officials"). The repetition of the suffix on each noun, rather than a single suffix applied once, gives each category its own grammatical weight, listing them as distinct but parallel groups rather than a single compound phrase. The clause closes with kol 'ish Yisra'El ("every man of Israel," H3605 + H0376G + H3478), a construct phrase using kol ("every/all") plus 'ish ("man of") in construct with the place name, broadening the scope from named leaders to the entire male population.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders ra.shei.khem ("your chiefs") as "οἱ ἀρχίφυλοι ὑμῶν" (your tribal chiefs) and adds "ἡ γερουσία ὑμῶν" (your council of elders) and "οἱ κριταὶ ὑμῶν" (your judges) as separate categories, producing a slightly different grouping than the Hebrew's four terms (chiefs, tribes, elders, officials). The Vulgate similarly renders shiv.tei.khem ("your tribes") as "tribus" but reorganizes the list as "principes...et tribus, ac majores natu, atque doctores," using "doctores" ("teachers") for Sho.te.rei.khem ("your officials"), a semantic shift from the Hebrew's administrative sense of that participle.