Deuteronomy 29:13

Summary

Deuteronomy 29:13 states the purpose of the covenant transaction described in the preceding verses: Yehovah is establishing the addressee "this day" as his people, so that he will be their God, in accordance with what he had spoken and with what he had sworn to the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Key words

• le.Ma.'an ("so as/that", H4616) — a purpose particle introducing the clause; it frames everything that follows as the goal or result of the covenant-making act described earlier in the chapter.
• ha.kim- ("to establish", H6965I) — Hiphil infinitive, causative in force: the subject (Yehovah, understood from context) causes the addressee to be established, rather than the addressee establishing himself.
• yih.yeh- ("he will become", H1961) — Qal imperfect, expressing a future or ongoing state: "he will be/become," describing the reciprocal side of the relationship (Yehovah becoming God to the people).
• di.ber- ("he spoke", H1696I) — Piel perfect, completed action, intensive stem; refers back to prior spoken promise.
• nish.Ba' ("he swore", H7650) — Niphal perfect, completed action; the passive/reflexive stem here carries the sense of self-binding through oath, referring to the oath made to the ancestors.

What the text says

The verse opens with le.Ma.'an ("so as", H4616), a subordinating particle that ties this verse to the preceding legal/covenantal context — it does not stand as an independent sentence but explains the purpose of the action just described. The infinitive ha.kim- ("to establish", H6965I) is Hiphil, meaning the grammatical subject causes the object (marked by 'o.te- + Kha, "you," H0853+H9031) to be established; the addressee is the direct object of an unstated causing agent, consistent with the surrounding chapter where Yehovah is the actor. The phrase lo le'Am ("to him, to a people", H9033+H5971A) uses two prepositions with pronominal and independent nouns to express "as his people," a construction where Hebrew stacks prepositional phrases rather than using an equative verb.

The second half of the verse shifts subject with Hu' ("he", H1931) and the Qal imperfect yih.yeh- ("he will become", H1961), describing a future/ongoing state contrasted with the completed actions named afterward. The two relative clauses introduced by ka.'a.Sher / ve.kha.'a.Sher ("just as" / "and just as", H9004+H0834D) both modify what follows: the first refers to something already di.ber- ("spoken", H1696I, Piel perfect) to the addressee, and the second to something nish.Ba' ("sworn", H7650, Niphal perfect) to the ancestors, named individually as 'av.ra.Ham (H0085), yitz.Chak (H3327), and ya.'a.ko (H3290). The perfect aspect in both verbs marks these as completed prior acts, contrasted with the future/ongoing yih.yeh-.

Differences between versions

The LXX and Vulgate both render le'Am ("to a people") straightforwardly but shift lo ("to him") into a pronoun agreeing with the verb's subject (εἰς λαὸν / in populum), losing the Hebrew's double prepositional structure (lo... le'Am). The Hebrew lo ("to him") is implicit in Greek and Latin rather than separately marked. The English versions (BSB, RV1909, SBLIBRE) supply an explicit subject "He" for the establishing action, which in the Hebrew infinitive construction (ha.kim-) has no overt subject within the verse itself, the subject being carried from the wider context.