Deuteronomy 32:16

Summary

The verse describes the people's actions toward Yehovah: they made him jealous through strange gods, and they provoked him to anger through abominations. Both verbs share the same object suffix, referring back to Yehovah, and describe two parallel reactions caused by the same kind of behavior.

Key words

• yakni'uhu ("they made him jealous", H7065) — hiphil imperfect with 3rd person masculine plural subject and 3rd masculine singular suffix "him"; the hiphil form makes the verb causative, meaning the subject causes jealousy in the object rather than merely feeling it.
• zarim ("strange [gods]", H2114A) — masculine plural adjective, here functioning as a substantive referring to foreign or "strange" divine beings, contrasted implicitly with Yehovah.
• to'evot ("abominations", H8441) — feminine plural noun, naming the category of practices or objects that provoke the reaction described in the second half of the verse.
• yakh'isuhu ("they provoked him to anger", H3707) — hiphil imperfect, 3rd masculine plural subject, with the same 3rd masculine singular suffix "him" as the first verb, creating a grammatical parallel with yakni'uhu.
• be- ("by/with", H9003) — the preposition repeated before both zarim and to'evot, marking the means or instrument by which the two verbs' actions were carried out.

What the text says

The verse is built as a tight bicolon with matching grammar in both halves. Each half opens with a hiphil causative verb (yakni'uhu, yakh'isuhu), each carrying the same 3rd person masculine singular suffix -hu ("him"), and each verb is followed by the preposition be- introducing the means: zarim ("strange [gods]") in the first line, to'evot ("abominations") in the second. This repetition of grammatical structure — verb + suffix + preposition + noun — creates a parallelism where the second line restates and intensifies the first: causing jealousy is echoed by causing anger, and "strange gods" is echoed by "abominations."

The hiphil form of both verbs is significant grammatically: it does not describe the subjects experiencing jealousy or anger themselves, but rather producing those reactions in another party, marked by the suffix -hu. The identity of "him" is not stated within this verse itself but is carried by the suffix, which the grammar requires the reader to trace to an antecedent from context.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders both verbs in the first person singular ("they provoked me... they embittered me"), and adds αὐτῶν ("their") to "abominations," which is not marked as present in the Hebrew word list. The Vulgate uses eum ("him") for the first verb, matching the Hebrew's third-person suffix, and specifies diis alienis ("foreign gods") for zarim, making explicit "gods," which is only implied by the Hebrew adjective form.