Deuteronomy 29:25

Summary

The verse gives the answer people will give (v. 25) when asked about the desolation of the land: they will explain that it happened because the people forsook the covenant of Yehovah, the God of their ancestors, which he had made with them at the time he brought them out of Egypt.

Key words

• 'a.me.Ru ("people will say", H0559) — qal sequential perfect, continuing the narrative chain begun in the preceding verses; functions like a future/consequent "they will say."
• 'a.ze.Vu ("they forsook", H5800A) — qal perfect, marking a completed past action: the forsaking precedes the speaking.
• be.Rit ("covenant of", H1285) — feminine singular construct, grammatically bound to Yehovah, producing "covenant of Yehovah" rather than a standalone noun.
• ka.Rat ("he made", H3772H) — qal perfect of the verb literally "to cut," used idiomatically for making a covenant; the subject is Yehovah, understood from context.
• ho.tzi.' ("brought out", H3318H) — hiphil infinitive with pronominal suffix "he," causative form indicating Yehovah as the one who caused the exodus, embedded in the temporal clause "when he brought them out."

What the text says

The sentence is built as a chain of subordinate clauses attached to the main verb 'a.me.Ru ("they will say"). The content of what is said begins with the relative particle 'a.Sher ("that"), introducing the reported reason: 'a.ze.Vu ("they forsook") the be.Rit ("covenant of") Yehovah 'e.lo.Hei ("God of") 'a.vo.Ta-m ("their ancestors"). This chain of construct nouns — covenant of Yehovah, God of their ancestors — stacks genitive relationships without any connecting words, a typical feature of Hebrew construct chains that Spanish or English must render with "of" repeatedly.

A second relative clause, introduced again by 'a.Sher ("which"), specifies the covenant further: ka.Rat ("he made") it 'i.Ma-m ("with them"). The verb ka.Rat carries a literal sense of "cutting," reflecting an idiom for covenant-making, though the gloss given is simply "he made." Finally, a temporal clause closes the verse: be.ho.tzi.'-o ("when he brought them out") 'o.Ta-m ("them") me.'E.retz mitz.Ra.yim ("from the land of Egypt"). The infinitive form with prefixed be ("when/in") plus the pronominal suffix "he" creates a compact temporal construction meaning "in his bringing them out," attaching the exodus event as the time frame in which the covenant was established.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders Yehovah as kyriou ("Lord") and 'e.lo.Hei as tou theou ("the God"), following the same construct structure. The Vulgate condenses the double designation "Yehovah, God of their fathers" into simply Domini ("of the Lord"), omitting the explicit "God of their fathers" phrase found in the Hebrew and LXX. The Vulgate and LXX both render ka.Rat ("he made," literally "cut") with verbs meaning "made/arranged" (pepigit, diethéto), not preserving the "cutting" idiom visible in the Hebrew.