Deuteronomy 32:21

Summary

The verse describes a reciprocal action between Yehovah and Israel: Israel provoked jealousy and anger by turning to "a no-god" and to "vanities," and Yehovah responds by provoking Israel's jealousy and anger through "a no-people" and a "foolish nation." The structure is built on strict grammatical parallelism between the two halves.

Key words

• kin'uni ("they have made jealous", H7065) — piel perfect, 3rd person plural with 1st-person suffix; the piel stem marks intensive action completed in the past.
• 'El ("a god", H0410K) — masculine singular noun preceded by the negation lo' ("not", H3808), forming the compound expression "a no-god."
• havlei-hem ("their vanities", H1892) — masculine plural noun in construct form with a 3rd-person plural suffix, literally "vapors/empty things of them."
• 'aqni'em ("I will make them jealous", H7065) — same root as kin'uni, but shifted to hiphil imperfect, 1st person singular with plural suffix; hiphil marks causative action, imperfect marks future/ongoing aspect.
• naval ("foolish", H5036) — masculine singular adjective modifying goy ("a nation", H1471A), forming "a foolish nation."

What the text says

The verse divides into two symmetrical clauses joined by va- ("and", H9002), each built on the same skeleton: subject + verb (root H7065 "jealous" or H3707 "anger") + object suffix + prepositional phrase with be- ("by", H9003) governing a negated noun. In the first half, hem ("they", H1992) is subject and ni ("me", H9030) is the object suffix on both kin'uni and ki'asuni; in the second half, 'ani ("I", H0589) is the subject and m ("them", H9038) is the object suffix on both 'aqni'em and 'akh'isem. This produces an exact mirroring: the nation's action toward Yehovah is answered by Yehovah's action toward the nation, using the identical two verbal roots (H7065, H3707) in both directions.

A notable grammatical shift is the verb stem: in the first half both verbs (kin'uni, ki'asuni) appear in piel perfect, describing completed intensive action by Israel. In the second half, the same roots ('aqni'em, 'akh'isem) appear in hiphil imperfect, describing causative, future/ongoing action by Yehovah. The stem change (piel → hiphil) marks a shift from intensive to causative nuance, though both convey "make jealous/angry."

The negated-noun construction be-lo-'El ("by a no-god") is grammatically mirrored by be-lo-'am ("by a no-people") — both use lo' ("not", H3808) directly before a singular noun, creating a paired rhetorical figure: what is "not a god" corresponds to what is "not a people."

Differences between versions

The LXX renders havlei-hem ("their vanities", H1892) as εἰδώλοις ("idols"), an interpretive rendering rather than a literal translation of "vapors/vanities." The Vulgate keeps closer to the Hebrew with "vanitatibus suis." For be-lo-'El, the Vulgate adds "qui non erat Deus" ("who was not God"), inserting a verb ("was") not present in the Hebrew's simple negated noun construction.