Deuteronomy 32:28

Summary

Deuteronomy 32:28 describes a nation characterized by lost or destroyed counsel and lacking understanding. The verse uses two parallel negative statements — one about counsel, one about discernment — to describe this people's condition.

Key words

• ki ("for", H3588A) — a particle that can function causally ("for/because") or conditionally ("if"); its exact force here shapes whether the verse states a fact or introduces a hypothetical.
• 'oVad ("perishing", H0006) — qal participle, masculine singular, describing an ongoing or characteristic state ("the one perishing/losing") rather than a completed action.
• eTzot ("counsels", H6098) — feminine plural noun; the plural form suggests repeated or accumulated acts of counsel, not a single decision.
• Hemah ("they", H1992) — an independent personal pronoun placed after the predicate, adding emphasis to the subject already implied by the verb form.
• te.vuNah ("understanding", H8394) — feminine singular abstract noun, naming a quality entirely absent according to the second clause.

What the text says

The verse divides into two balanced clauses joined by ve ("and", H9002). The first clause, ki-Goy 'oVad eTzot Hemah, places the participle 'oVad ("perishing") directly before the plural noun eTzot ("counsels"), forming a construct-like phrase: "a nation perishing/lost of counsels." The participle's grammatical form indicates an ongoing characteristic rather than a single past event — the nation is depicted as being in a continuous state relative to its counsel. The pronoun Hemah ("they") follows the predicate for emphasis, reinforcing that this description applies specifically to this collective subject.

The second clause, ve-'Ein baHem te.vuNah, uses the existential negator 'Ein ("there is not", H0369) in construct form with the preposition ba ("in", H9003) plus the third-person plural suffix Hem ("them," H9038), producing the idiomatic "there is no X in them" construction. This yields "there is no understanding in them," naming a second and distinct deficiency (te.vuNah) alongside the first (lost eTzot, "counsels").

Differences between versions

The Hebrew participle 'oVad is rendered differently across versions. The LXX uses ἀπολωλεκὸς ("having destroyed/lost"), an active perfect participle suggesting the nation itself brought about the loss of counsel. The Vulgate instead reads "absque consilio" ("without counsel"), a privative construction implying simple lack rather than active loss. The Hebrew ki is not reflected as a conditional in any of the cited versions; all render it causally ("for"/"porque"). The BSB inserts "Israel" as the subject, a contextual identification not present as an explicit noun in this verse's Hebrew text.