Deuteronomy 32:2

יַעֲרֹף כַּמָּטָר לִקְחִי תִּזַּל כַּטַּל אִמְרָתִי כִּשְׂעִירִם עֲלֵי־דֶשֶׁא וְכִרְבִיבִים עֲלֵי־עֵֽשֶׂב׃

✦ Hebrew interlinear

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✦ The same verse in five languages

Hebrew

יַעֲרֹ֤ף כַּמָּטָר֙ לִקְחִ֔י תִּזַּ֥ל כַּטַּ֖ל אִמְרָתִ֑י כִּשְׂעִירִ֣ם עֲלֵי־דֶ֔שֶׁא וְכִרְבִיבִ֖ים עֲלֵי־עֵֽשֶׂב׃

Greek (Septuagint)

προσδοκάσθω ὡς ὑετὸς τὸ ἀπόφθεγμά μου, καὶ καταβήτω ὡς δρόσος τὰ ῥήματά μου· ὡσεὶ ὄμβρος ἐπ᾿ ἄγρωστιν, καὶ ὡσεὶ νιφετὸς ἐπὶ χόρτον

Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0

Latin (Vulgate)

Concrescat ut pluvia doctrina mea, fluat ut ros eloquium meum, quasi imber super herbam, et quasi stillæ super gramina.

Spanish

Mi doctrina caerá como la lluvia. Mi discurso se condensará como el rocío, como la llovizna sobre la hierba tierna, como los aguaceros sobre la hierba.

Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)

Goteará como la lluvia mi doctrina; destilará como el rocío mi razonamiento; como la llovizna sobre la grama, y como las gotas sobre la hierba:

English

Let my teaching fall like rain and my speech settle like dew, like gentle rain on new grass, like showers on tender plants.

✦ What the text says

Summary

Deuteronomy 32:2 uses four parallel images of falling moisture — rain, dew, showers, and copious showers — to describe how the speaker's leqach ("teaching", H3948) and imrah ("speech", H565A) will descend. The verse forms two balanced poetic lines, each built on a verb of falling followed by a comparison introduced by ke ("like", H9004).

Key words

ya'arof ("may it drop", H6201) — Qal imperfect, masculine subject; expresses a wished-for or future action of dripping/falling.
tizzal ("may it distil", H5140) — Qal imperfect, feminine subject (matching imrati); parallels ya'arof in the second line.
liqchi ("my teaching", H3948) — construct noun with 1st-person suffix (-i, H9020); the thing that "drops like rain."
imrati ("my speech", H565A) — construct noun with 1st-person suffix; the thing that "distils like dew."
se'irim ("showers of rain", H8164) and revivim ("copious showers", H7241) — both masculine plural nouns, forming the third and fourth similes with ke/ki (H9004).

What the text says

The verse is built as two matching couplets. In the first, the verb ya'arof (H6201) precedes its simile "ka-matar" ("like the rain", H4306) and then names the subject, liqchi (H3948), "my teaching." The second couplet mirrors this with tizzal (H5140), "ka-tal" ("like the dew", H2919), and imrati (H565A), "my speech." The verb-first order in Hebrew places emphasis on the action of falling before naming what falls, a structure not preserved in English or Latin translations, which normally front the subject ("my teaching shall drop...").

The second half of the verse adds two more similes, ki-se'irim ("like showers of rain", H8164) and ve-khi-revivim ("and like copious showers", H7241), each followed by "alei" ("upon", H5921A) and a term for vegetation — deshe' ("grass", H1877) and esev ("vegetation", H6212). These two nouns for plant growth are not explicitly said to be the object of the first two similes (rain/teaching, dew/speech), but the shared agricultural imagery links all four lines into one continuous picture of moisture descending onto growing things.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders ya'arof (H6201) with prosdokasthō ("let it be expected/awaited"), a sense of anticipation not present in the Hebrew verb of dropping. The Vulgate's concrescat ("let it thicken/condense") for the same verb likewise shifts the image from falling to gathering. For revivim (H7241, "copious showers"), the LXX has niphetos ("snowfall"), while the Vulgate uses stillae ("drops"), both diverging from the Hebrew term's sense of heavy rain-showers.

This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.