Deuteronomy 31:5

Summary

The verse states that Yehovah will hand over the nations to the people, and instructs them to act toward those nations according to everything previously commanded. It is presented as a continuation of a narrative sequence, linking a divine action to a required human response.

Key words

• netanam ("he will deliver up them", H5414G) — qal sequential perfect with 3rd person plural suffix; continues the narrative chain, indicating an action following upon what precedes it, with Yehovah as subject and the nations as object.
• Yehovah ("Yehovah", H3068G) — the divine name, functioning as the grammatical subject of netanam.
• lifneichem ("before you", H6440G + H9026) — construct noun phenei ("face of") plus preposition and 2nd plural suffix, forming the idiom "before you," marking the recipients' position relative to the action.
• asitem ("you will do", H6213A) — qal sequential perfect, 2nd plural; continues the same narrative chain as netanam, making the human action grammatically parallel to the divine one.
• tzivviti ("I have commanded", H6680) — piel perfect, 1st person; the piel stem carries an intensive/instructive nuance, describing a completed act of command that serves as the standard for the required action.

What the text says

The verse is built on two sequential perfect verbs joined by the narrative vav (H9001): netanam ("he will deliver up them") and asitem ("you will do"). This grammatical chaining ties the delivering action of Yehovah directly to the subsequent required action of the addressees, presenting them as two links in one continuous narrative movement rather than as separate, unrelated statements. The construct phrase lifneichem ("before you," from phenei, H6440G) locates the delivered nations spatially in front of the people, using a body-part-derived idiom common in Biblical Hebrew for expressing precedence or presence.

The clause kechol-hamitzvah asher tzivviti etkhem ("according to all the commandment which I have commanded you") uses the construct chol ("all of," H3605) governing hamitzvah ("the commandment," H4687), followed by the relative particle asher (H0834A) introducing a subordinate clause. The verb tzivviti ("I have commanded," H6680) is in the piel stem, a form associated in this verb with intensified or authoritative instruction, and stands in the perfect tense, marking the command as a completed prior act that now serves as the measure for the action described by asitem.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders tzivviti ("I have commanded") as ἐνετειλάμην ("I commanded"), matching the Hebrew's completed aspect, but shortens the phrase "according to all the commandment which" to καθότι ("just as"), omitting explicit mention of "the commandment" (hamitzvah, H4687) found in the Hebrew. The Vulgate similarly compresses this with sicut praecepi vobis ("as I have commanded you"), without a direct equivalent for kol ("all," H3605) or hamitzvah ("the commandment," H4687).