Deuteronomy 30:1

Summary

The verse opens a future scenario: when all the words previously listed — the blessing and the curse — have come upon the addressee, and he brings them back to mind while dispersed among the nations to which Yehovah his God has banished him. It functions as the introductory clause ("it will be that...") setting up the condition for what follows in the passage.

Key words

• ha.Yah ("it will be", H1961) — qal sequential perfect, opening formula that projects the following clause into future time, common at the start of conditional narrative sequences.
• ye.va.'u ("they will come", H0935G) — qal imperfect, marks the coming/arrival of "these things" as an ongoing or future event, governed by the subordinating khi ("that/if", H3588A).
• ha.she.vo.Ta ("you will bring back", H7725N) — hiphil (causative) sequential perfect; the causative stem indicates active mental action, "causing to return," here applied to the heart/mind.
• hi.di.cha.kha ("he has banished you", H5080) — hiphil perfect, causative form describing a completed act of expulsion performed by the subject named later in the verse.
• le.va.Ve.kha ("your heart", H3824 + suffix) — construct noun with pronominal suffix, the object toward which the action of "bringing back" (verse 23) is directed.

What the text says

The verse is built as a two-part conditional sentence chained by sequential perfects (ve.ha.Yah, va.ha.she.vo.Ta), a common construction in this text-type where a string of "and it will be... and you will..." clauses expresses a future sequence of events tied together as cause and consequence. The first clause is introduced by khi (H3588A), here functioning as "when/if," and its verb ya.vo'u (H0935G) is imperfect, leaving the timing open — the arrival of "all these things" (kol ha-devarim ha-elleh) is anticipated but not fixed to one specific moment.

The phrase ha-berakhah ve-ha-qelalah ("the blessing and the curse") stands in apposition to "these things," specified further by the relative clause asher natati lefaneikha ("which I have set before you"), using the qal perfect na.Ta.ti (H5414H) to mark this as a completed act by the speaker. The second half of the verse turns to the addressee's response: ha.she.vo.Ta el-levavekha (H7725N) uses the hiphil stem, giving it a causative sense — literally "you will cause to return to your heart" — describing an internal, cognitive action rather than physical return. This occurs "among all the nations" (be-khol ha-goyim) to which the addressee has been banished, expressed by the hiphil perfect hi.di.cha.kha (H5080), attributed to Yehovah eloheikha ("Yehovah your God").

Differences between versions

The LXX renders va.ha.she.vo.Ta el-levavekha ("you will bring back to your heart") as καὶ δέξῃ εἰς τὴν καρδίαν σου ("and you will receive into your heart"), shifting from the Hebrew's causative "returning" action to a verb of reception. The Vulgate instead reads "ductus pœnitudine cordis tui" ("led by the repentance of your heart"), introducing the concept of pœnitudo ("repentance"), which is not present as a distinct lexical item in the Hebrew clause. The Hebrew hi.di.cha.kha ("he has banished you," H5080) is rendered by the LXX with διασκορπίσῃ ("he will scatter"), a different verb image (scattering vs. driving/banishing) than the Hebrew hiphil root.