Deuteronomy 29:12

Summary

The verse states the purpose of the assembly: that the addressee may "pass into" the covenant of Yehovah his God, along with the oath tied to it — a covenant/oath that Yehovah is described as making with him "today." The Hebrew frames this as movement ("crossing over") into a binding relationship rather than simply "entering" an agreement.

Key words

• le'avor-kha ("to pass on, you", H5674A + H9031) — infinitive construct with prefixed le and pronominal suffix, expressing purpose: "in order that you cross/pass into..."
• brit ("covenant of", H1285) — feminine singular construct noun, grammatically bound to "Yehovah your God" that follows.
• alato ("his oath", H0423) — construct noun with 3rd person suffix, joined to the covenant by the conjunction u ("and", H9002).
• asher ("which/who", H0834A) — relative particle introducing the clause that specifies who is enacting the covenant/oath.
• koret ("is cutting/making", H3772H) — qal participle, masculine singular, describing an ongoing or present act; used with brit elsewhere in Hebrew as the standard idiom "to cut a covenant."

What the text says

The sentence opens with the purpose infinitive le'avor-kha ("for your passing/crossing"), which governs two parallel prepositional phrases joined by u ("and"): "in the covenant of Yehovah your God" (bivrit Yehovah eloheikha) and "in his oath" (uve'alato). Both nouns — brit ("covenant") and alah ("oath") — are construct forms, syntactically dependent on what follows. The relative clause introduced by asher ("which") — "Yehovah your God is koret [cutting/making] with you today" — attaches to this preceding material, using the participle koret, which in Hebrew idiom regularly pairs with brit to mean "to make/conclude a covenant" (literally "to cut a covenant"). The participle form gives the action a present, ongoing sense: not a past event only, but something being enacted "today" (hayom, H3117G).

Because both "covenant" and "oath" precede the relative clause, the Hebrew syntax allows the clause "which Yehovah your God is making with you today" to describe either the oath alone or both the covenant and oath together — the construction does not disambiguate this on its own.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the second noun as ἀρίς (a form of ἀρά, "curse") rather than reflecting the sense "oath" as in the Hebrew alah (H0423) and the Vulgate's jurejurando ("oath/sworn oath"). The Vulgate closely follows the Hebrew's twofold structure ("covenant... and... oath"). Modern translations such as the BSB reposition the relative clause ("which He is making with you today") to follow immediately after "covenant," visually separating it from "oath," whereas in the Hebrew word order the clause follows both nouns without formally marking which one it modifies.