Deuteronomy 32:14
חֶמְאַת בָּקָר וַחֲלֵב צֹאן עִם־חֵלֶב כָּרִים וְאֵילִים בְּנֵֽי־בָשָׁן וְעַתּוּדִים עִם־חֵלֶב כִּלְיוֹת חִטָּה וְדַם־עֵנָב תִּשְׁתֶּה־חָֽמֶר׃
✦ Hebrew interlinear
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✦ The same verse in five languages
חֶמְאַ֨ת בָּקָ֜ר וַחֲלֵ֣ב צֹ֗אן עִם־חֵ֨לֶב כָּרִ֜ים וְאֵילִ֤ים בְּנֵֽי־בָשָׁן֙ וְעַתּוּדִ֔ים עִם־חֵ֖לֶב כִּלְי֣וֹת חִטָּ֑ה וְדַם־עֵנָ֖ב תִּשְׁתֶּה־חָֽמֶר׃
βούτυρον βοῶν καὶ γάλα προβάτων μετὰ στέατος ἀρνῶν καὶ κριῶν, υἱῶν ταύρων καὶ τράγων μετὰ στέατος νεφρῶν πυροῦ, καὶ αἷμα σταφυλῆς ἔπιεν οἶνον.
Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0
Latin (Vulgate)
butyrum de armento, et lac de ovibus cum adipe agnorum, et arietum filiorum Basan: et hircos cum medulla tritici, et sanguinem uvæ biberet meracissimum.
la mantequilla del rebaño, y la leche del rebaño, con grasa de cordero, carneros de la raza de Basán, y cabras, con el más fino de los trigos. De la sangre de la uva, bebieron vino.
Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)
Manteca de vacas y leche de ovejas, con grosura de corderos, y carneros de Basán; también machos de cabrío, con grosura de riñones de trigo: y sangre de uva bebiste, vino puro.
with curds from the herd and milk from the flock, with the fat of lambs, with rams from Bashan, and goats, with the choicest grains of wheat. From the juice of the finest grapes you drank the wine.
✦ What the text says
Summary
The verse lists a series of rich foods — curds, milk, animal fat, and the finest wheat — culminating in wine made "from the blood of the grape." It forms the climax of a longer passage describing abundant provisions, ending with a single verb of drinking.
Key words
- chem'At ("curd of", H2529A) — feminine singular construct, opening a chain of construct nouns ("X of Y") that structures the whole verse.
- chaLev ("milk of", H2461) — construct form; near-homograph with Che.lev below, distinguished only by vowel pointing.
- Che.lev ("fat of", H2459) — appears twice (items 7 and 16), each time governing a following noun in construct ("fat of lambs," "fat of kidneys").
- kilYot ("kidneys of", H3629) — feminine plural construct, forming a double-construct chain chelev kilyot chittah, "fat of the kidneys of wheat," an idiomatic way of denoting the richest part of the grain.
- tishteh ("you drank/will drink", H8354) — Qal imperfect, 2nd person masculine singular; the only finite verb in the verse, placed at the very end after a long list of nominal phrases.
What the text says
The verse is built almost entirely from stacked construct chains (chem'At bakar, "curd of the herd"; chalev tzon, "milk of the flock"; chelev karim, "fat of lambs"; chelev kilyot chittah, "fat of the kidneys of wheat"; dam-'enav, "blood of the grape"), each specifying a substance drawn from an animal, plant, or produce source. This piling-up of construct nouns creates a long inventory before any verb appears. The single verb, tishteh (H8354), is a Qal imperfect 2nd masculine singular, meaning grammatically it addresses "you" (singular, masculine) and can express past, present, or future depending on context — the form itself does not fix tense. The phrase chelev kilyot chittah is a fixed idiom pairing "fat" and "kidneys" with "wheat" to denote the choicest, richest portion of the grain, not literal animal kidneys mixed with wheat.
Differences between versions
The Hebrew verb tishteh is 2nd person masculine singular ("you drink/drank"). The LXX renders it as ἔπιεν, aorist 3rd person singular ("he drank"), and the Vulgate’s biberet similarly implies a 3rd-person subject. SBLIBRE’s Spanish "bebieron" ("they drank") shifts to 3rd person plural. BSB, by contrast, keeps the 2nd person "you drank," matching the Hebrew form. Additionally, the idiom chelev kilyot chittah is translated literally by TAHOT-style glosses and RV1909 ("riñones de trigo") but rendered idiomatically as "choicest grains of wheat" (BSB) or "el más fino de los trigos" (SBLIBRE).
This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.