Deuteronomy 3:18

Summary

Moses recounts that at that time he commanded the Israelite tribes settled east of the Jordan: since Yehovah their God had given them this land to possess, their armed men must cross ahead of the rest of Israel. The verse sets up the obligation of the fighting men from Reuben, Gad, and half of Manasseh to assist their countrymen in conquering the land west of the Jordan.

Key words

• va.'aTzav ("and I commanded", H6680) — piel narrative verb, first person; the piel stem gives an intensive/causative nuance to "command," and the vav links this directly to the preceding narrative.
• naTan ("he has given", H5414) — qal perfect; the completed aspect frames the land grant as an already-accomplished fact at the time of the command, not a future promise.
• chaluTzim ("equipped", H2502) — qal passive participle, masculine plural; describes the men as already in a state of being armed/equipped, functioning almost adverbially with the following verb.
• ta'avRu ("you will pass over", H5674) — qal imperfect, second person plural; imperfect aspect marks this as an action commanded to occur, ongoing or yet to be completed relative to the speech moment.
• bnei chaYil ("sons of strength", H1121 + H2428) — construct chain literally "sons of strength/valor," idiomatically referring to able-bodied or capable fighting men.

What the text says

The verse opens with the narrative vav on 'aTzav ("and I commanded"), continuing the chain of Moses' first-person retelling. The content of the command is introduced by the infinitive le-Mor ("saying"), which functions to open direct speech. Within that speech, the clause "Yehovah 'eloheiKhem naTan laKhem..." uses a qal perfect verb (naTan) to state that the giving of the land is already accomplished — grammatically prior to and independent of the command about crossing.

The second half of the command shifts to imperfect aspect with ta'avRu ("you will pass over"), indicating an action to be carried out, modified by the preceding participle chaluTzim ("equipped"), which describes the state of the men as they cross — already armed rather than becoming armed. The final phrase, kol-bnei chaYil ("all the sons of strength"), stands in apposition, specifying which group is meant by "your countrymen": not the whole nation but specifically those capable of military service. The construct chains throughout ('elohei-Khem, pnei, 'achei-Khem, bnei-Yisra'El, bnei-chaYil) build a dense chain of relational nouns typical of Hebrew narrative prose.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the phrase "to possess it" (lerishTah, H3423) differently, adding "ἐν κλήρῳ" ("as an inheritance/by lot"), a phrase not present as a separate lexical item in the Hebrew construct lerishTah. The Vulgate's "in hæreditatem" ("as an inheritance") likewise reflects this same interpretive addition found in the LXX rather than a direct rendering of the Hebrew infinitive "to possess."