Deuteronomy 32:11
כְּנֶשֶׁר יָעִיר קִנּוֹ עַל־גּוֹזָלָיו יְרַחֵף יִפְרֹשׂ כְּנָפָיו יִקָּחֵהוּ יִשָּׂאֵהוּ עַל־אֶבְרָתֽוֹ׃
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✦ The same verse in five languages
כְּנֶ֙שֶׁר֙ יָעִ֣יר קִנּ֔וֹ עַל־גּוֹזָלָ֖יו יְרַחֵ֑ף יִפְרֹ֤שׂ כְּנָפָיו֙ יִקָּחֵ֔הוּ יִשָּׂאֵ֖הוּ עַל־אֶבְרָתֽוֹ׃
ὡς ἀετὸς σκεπάσαι νοσσιὰν αὐτοῦ, καὶ ἐπὶ τοῖς νοσσοῖς αὐτοῦ ἐπεπόθησεν, διεὶς τὰς πτέρυγας αὐτοῦ ἐδέξατο αὐτούς, καὶ ἀνέλαβεν αὐτοὺς ἐπὶ τῶν μεταφρένων αὐτοῦ.
Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0
Latin (Vulgate)
Sicut aquila provocans ad volandum pullos suos, et super eos volitans, expandit alas suas, et assumpsit eum, atque portavit in humeris suis.
Como un águila que agita su nido, que revolotea sobre sus crías, extendió sus alas, los tomó, los llevaba en sus plumas.
Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)
Como el águila despierta su nidada, revolotea sobre sus pollos, extiende sus alas, los toma, los lleva sobre sus plumas:
As an eagle stirs up its nest and hovers over its young, He spread His wings to catch them and carried them on His pinions.
✦ What the text says
Summary
The verse compares Yehovah's care for Israel to an eagle's care for its young: the eagle stirs up its nest, hovers protectively over its fledglings, spreads its wings to catch them, and carries them on its pinions.
Key words
- ya'ir ("[which] it stirs up", H5782) — hiphil imperfect, causative form: the eagle actively causes agitation or movement in the nest, not merely observes it.
- yerachef ("it hovers", H7363B) — piel imperfect, an intensive stem giving the hovering a repeated, deliberate quality rather than a single brief motion.
- gozalav ("its young ones", H1469) — masculine plural construct with 3ms suffix, referring to multiple fledglings as a group.
- yikachehu ("it takes it", H3947G) — qal imperfect with 3ms singular object suffix -hu ("him/it"), grammatically singular even though the preceding noun gozalav is plural.
- yisa'ehu ("it carries it", H5375H) — same pattern: qal imperfect with singular suffix, paralleling yikachehu.
What the text says
The sentence opens with the comparative particle ke ("like", H9004) attached to nesher ("an eagle", H5404), setting up a five-part simile built entirely on imperfect verb forms, which in this poetic context describe a vivid, repeated sequence of actions rather than a single past event. The first two verbs, ya'ir (hiphil) and yerachef (piel), use intensified stems: the eagle does not passively sit but actively rouses the nest and repeatedly hovers over it. The final three verbs — yifros ("spreads out", H6566), yikachehu, and yisa'ehu — shift from qal (simple) stems but maintain the flow of one continuous depiction: spreading wings, taking, and carrying.
A notable grammatical detail is that gozalav ("its young ones") is plural, yet the two final verbs carry the singular suffix -hu ("it/him", H9033). The Hebrew grammar therefore shifts from describing the collective brood to focusing the action on a singular object, a feature not visible in translations that render both verbs with a plural pronoun ("them").
Differences between versions
The LXX renders ya'ir ("stirs up") as σκεπάσαι ("to shelter/cover"), a semantic shift from agitation to protection. It also renders yerachef ("hovers") as ἐπεπόθησεν ("longed for"), an emotional rather than physical description. The Vulgate's provocans ad volandum ("provoking to fly") stays closer to the Hebrew sense of active stirring. For 'evrato ("its pinion", H0084), the Vulgate reads in humeris suis ("on his shoulders"), differing from the Hebrew's specific reference to a wing-pinion. The Vulgate and Septuagint both render the final verbs with plural objects ("them"/eos), where the Hebrew suffixes -hu are grammatically singular.
This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.