Deuteronomy 29:15

Summary

This verse continues a sentence begun earlier in the passage, specifying two groups included in the covenant: those who are physically standing present "today" before Yehovah, and those who are not present. The Hebrew marks both groups with the object particle 'et and a relative clause built on an existential expression rather than a simple verb "to be".

Key words

• yeshno (H3426 + suffix) — the existential particle yesh ("there is") with the 3ms suffix "his", literally "there-is-of-him", used idiomatically to mean "he who is present/exists".
• 'omed ("standing", H5975G) — qal participle, masculine singular, describing a continuous state ("the one standing/being present") rather than a completed action.
• lifney ("before", H6440G) — construct plural of "face", forming with the following name the idiom "before the face of," i.e. "in the presence of."
• 'eynenu (H0369 + suffix) — the negative existential particle 'eyn ("there is not") with the 3ms suffix "his," the mirror-opposite of yeshno, meaning "he who is not present."
• 'asher (H0834A, twice) — the relative particle introducing each of the two clauses ("the one who...").

What the text says

The verse is built as two parallel relative clauses, each introduced by 'et 'asher ("[with] the one who..."), both governed by a verb outside this verse (the passage continues a sentence about who is included in the covenant). The first clause uses yeshno ("there-is-of-him") followed by the adverb poh ("here", H6311) and 'immanu ("with us", H5973A + suffix), then the participle 'omed ("standing") plus hayom ("this day", H3117G), and finally lifney Yehovah 'Eloheinu ("before Yehovah our God"). The construction yeshno...'omed doubles the notion of presence: the existential particle establishes that the person "exists/is-there", and the participle further specifies the state as "standing" — together conveying continuous physical presence at the scene of the covenant.

The second clause mirrors the first exactly but replaces yeshno with its negative counterpart 'eynenu ("there-is-not-of-him") and omits both the participle and the phrase "before Yehovah our God," ending simply with hayom ("this day"). The grammatical parallelism ('et 'asher... poh 'immanu... hayom) sets up a contrast between presence and absence using the same skeletal syntax, with the negative existential particle doing the work that a negated verb might do in other languages.

Differences between versions

The LXX reads "τοῖς ὦδε οὖσι μεθ' ἡμῶν σήμερον... κυρίου τοῦ θεοῦ ὑμῶν" ("your God"), where the Hebrew has 'Eloheinu ("our God", H0430G + H9025). The Vulgate condenses the entire bipartite construction into two words, "cunctis praesentibus et absentibus" ("to all present and absent"), omitting both the reference to standing "before Yehovah our God" and the repeated 'asher-clause structure found in the Hebrew.