Deuteronomy 31:8

Summary

The verse affirms that Yehovah himself precedes the addressee and will remain present with him, using emphatic pronouns to stress that no other agent performs these actions. It closes with two paired negative commands against fear and dismay, reinforced by two prior negated verbs promising that Yehovah will not abandon or forsake the addressee.

Key words

• Yahweh ("Yehovah", H3068G) — the divine name, subject of the first clause, followed immediately by an emphatic pronoun.
• hu' ("he", H1931) — appears twice (positions 3 and 9), an independent personal pronoun that adds emphasis to the subject already implied by the verb forms, stressing "he himself."
• ho.Lekh ("[one who] goes", H1980G) — qal participle with definite article, functioning as a substantive: "the one who goes," describing continuous or characteristic action rather than a single event.
• yar.pe. ("he will abandon", H7503) — hiphil imperfect, a causative stem indicating an action of releasing or letting go, negated by lo' ("not", H3808).
• te.Chat ("you must be dismayed", H2865) — niphal imperfect, a passive/reflexive stem describing the state of being broken or terrified, distinct from the qal verb ti.Ra' ("you must be afraid", H3372G) that precedes it.

What the text says

The verse divides into two main declarative clauses followed by two prohibitive pairs. The first clause, va-Yahweh hu' ha-ho.Lekh le-fa.Nei.kha ("and Yehovah, he [is] the one going before you"), places the divine name first, then reinforces the subject with the independent pronoun hu', and finally uses a participle with the definite article (ha-ho.Lekh) rather than a finite verb — a construction that presents the action as an ongoing characteristic ("the one who goes") rather than a single future event. The second clause, hu' yih.Yeh 'i.Ma.kh ("he will be with you"), repeats the pronoun hu' before the imperfect verb yih.Yeh, again placing emphasis on the subject before the action.

The following two verbs, yar.pe. (hiphil, "he will abandon/let go") and ya.'az.Ve. (qal, "he will forsake"), are both negated by lo', forming a parallel pair with slightly different stems — the hiphil suggesting a causative release, the qal a more general abandonment. The final two prohibitions, lo' ti.Ra' ("do not fear," qal) and ve-lo' te.Chat ("do not be dismayed," niphal), also form a pair, but with different verbal stems: the first is an active qal verb, the second a niphal, which in Biblical Hebrew often marks a passive or resultative state — here, the condition of being broken or terrified rather than the act of fearing itself.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the participle ho.Lekh le-fa.Nei.kha ("the one going before you") as ὁ συνπορευόμενος μετὰ σοῦ ("the one going/journeying with you"), shifting the spatial nuance from "before" (preceding) to "with" (accompanying), and it omits a separate rendering of the first clause's emphatic hu'. The Vulgate renders the same phrase as qui ductor est vester ("who is your leader/guide"), introducing the concept of leadership not explicitly present in the Hebrew participle ho.Lekh ("the one going").