Deuteronomy 29:5
וָאוֹלֵךְ אֶתְכֶם אַרְבָּעִים שָׁנָה בַּמִּדְבָּר לֹֽא־בָלוּ שַׂלְמֹֽתֵיכֶם מֵעֲלֵיכֶם וְנַֽעַלְךָ לֹֽא־בָלְתָה מֵעַל רַגְלֶֽךָ׃
✦ Hebrew interlinear
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✦ The same verse in five languages
וָאוֹלֵ֥ךְ אֶתְכֶ֛ם אַרְבָּעִ֥ים שָׁנָ֖ה בַּמִּדְבָּ֑ר לֹֽא־בָל֤וּ שַׂלְמֹֽתֵיכֶם֙ מֵעֲלֵיכֶ֔ם וְנַֽעַלְךָ֥ לֹֽא־בָלְתָ֖ה מֵעַ֥ל רַגְלֶֽךָ׃
καὶ ἤγαγεν ὑμᾶς ἐν τῇ ἐρήμῳ τεσσεράκοντα ἔτη· οὐκ ἐπαλαιώθη τὰ ἱμάτια ὑμῶν, καὶ τὰ ὑποδήματα ὑμῶν οὐ κατετρίβη ἀπὸ τῶν ποδῶν ὑμῶν.
Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0
Latin (Vulgate)
Adduxit vos quadraginta annis per desertum: non sunt attrita vestimenta vestra, nec calceamenta pedum vestrorum vetustate consumpta sunt.
Los he conducido cuarenta años por el desierto. Sus ropas no se han envejecido en ustedes, y sus sandalias no se han envejecido en sus pies.
Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)
Y yo os he traído cuarenta años por el desierto: vuestros vestidos no se han envejecido sobre vosotros, ni tu zapato se ha envejecido sobre tu pie.
For forty years I led you in the wilderness, yet your clothes and sandals did not wear out.
✦ What the text says
Summary
The verse describes forty years during which Yehovah (through Moses' account) led the people through the wilderness, and states that their garments did not wear out on them, nor did the sandal wear out on the foot. The sentence uses two parallel negative clauses to emphasize the durability of clothing and footwear during that period.
Key words
- 'oLekh ("I led", H1980J) — hiphil (causative) form with narrative vav, meaning "I caused to walk"; the vav-consecutive links this action directly to the preceding narrative sequence.
- 'ar.ba.'Im shaNah ("forty year[s]", H0705 + H8141) — the noun shanah ("year") appears in the singular even though paired with the plural number "forty," a common construction in Biblical Hebrew for counted time spans.
- sal.mo.Tei.khem ("your garments", H8008) — feminine plural construct, "garments of you," referring to clothing as a collective plural item.
- na.'al.Kha ("your sandal", H5275) — feminine singular construct, "sandal of you," notably singular rather than plural.
- rag.Le.kha ("your foot", H7272) — feminine singular construct, "foot of you," also singular, paired with the singular sandal.
What the text says
The verse opens with a vav-consecutive verb, 'oLekh, in the hiphil stem, which conveys causation: "I caused [you] to walk," i.e., "I led." This connects the sentence to whatever action preceded it in the narrative chain. The phrase 'ar.ba.'Im shaNah ("forty year[s]") uses the singular form of "year" despite the plural numeral, a standard Hebrew pattern when a noun follows a counted number.
The second half of the verse contains two structurally parallel negative clauses, each built with lo' ("not", H3808) followed by the verb balah ("to wear out", H1086) in the qal perfect. The first clause uses the plural subject sal.mo.Tei.khem ("your garments") with a plural verb baLu ("they wore out"). The second clause shifts to singular: na.'al.Kha ("your sandal") paired with the singular verb form val.Tah ("it wore out"), and the object of wearing is rag.Le.kha ("your foot"), also singular. This grammatical shift — plural for garments, singular for sandal and foot — is preserved in the Hebrew text itself, contrasting the collective plural "clothes" with an individualized singular "sandal on the foot."
Differences between versions
The Hebrew maintains a singular form for na.'al.Kha ("your sandal") and rag.Le.kha ("your foot"), while the LXX renders these as plural (τὰ ὑποδήματα, "the sandals"; τῶν ποδῶν, "the feet") and the Vulgate likewise uses plural forms (calceamenta, pedum). Among the modern translations given, RV1909 preserves the Hebrew's singular ("tu zapato... tu pie"), whereas BSB and SBLIBRE follow the LXX/Vulgate pattern with plural "sandals" and "feet."
This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.