Deuteronomy 32:1

Summary

The verse opens Moses' closing poem with a double summons: the heavens are told to "give ear" and the earth to "hear," so that his speech may be witnessed by the totality of creation. The content of that speech is called "the words of my mouth," referring to what follows in the poem.

Key words

• ha'azinu ("give ear", H0238) — Hiphil (causative) imperative, plural, addressed to ha.shamayim ("the heavens"); the causative stem implies actively directing one's ear toward something, not merely hearing passively.
• shamayim ("heavens", H8064) — masculine plural noun, grammatically matching the plural imperative form of ha'azinu.
• 'adabberah ("let me speak", H1696G) — Piel (intensive) form; in the data labeled as infinitive ("to do/in doing"), marking the speaking as an intensified or purposeful act tied to the preceding summons.
• tishma' ("it may hear", H8085G) — Qal imperfect with vav, third person feminine singular, agreeing with ha'aretz ("the earth"), a feminine singular noun; the vav gives it a purpose or continuative sense ("so that it may hear").
• 'imrei-fi ("words of my mouth", H0561 + H6310G + H9020) — construct chain: "words of" + "mouth of" + "my," stacking two construct nouns before the pronominal suffix, a common Hebrew way of building a possessive phrase without a separate word for "of."

What the text says

The verse is built as a two-part parallel structure: heavens/give ear and earth/hear. Grammatically, the two halves are not identical — ha'azinu is a plural imperative matching the plural noun shamayim, while tishma' is a singular imperfect matching the singular noun ha'aretz. This variation in verb number and form (imperative vs. imperfect-with-vav) produces a rhythmic asymmetry within the parallelism rather than a mechanical repetition. The phrase 'imrei-fi ("words of my mouth") sits at the end of the verse, but by the logic of Hebrew parallelism it functions as the shared object of both actions: the heavens are to "give ear" to it and the earth is to "hear" it, even though it is only grammatically attached to the second clause.

Differences between versions

The Septuagint text supplied here contains only the second half of the verse ("and let the earth hear the words from my mouth"), lacking any rendering of the heavens clause and of 'adabberah. The Vulgate renders the two verbs differently in mood/number ("Audite," plural imperative, for the heavens; "audiat," singular subjunctive, for the earth), preserving the Hebrew's number distinction. English versions (BSB, RV1909, SBLIBRE) render 'adabberah as "I will speak," a first-person future/volitive sense, which differs from the data's labeling of the form as an infinitive.