Deuteronomy 32:30

Summary

The verse asks a rhetorical question about how one person could chase a thousand and two could put ten thousand to flight, then answers it: this could only happen because "their Rock" sold them and Yehovah gave them up. The passage frames military defeat as a direct consequence of abandonment by the divine figure named in the text.

Key words

• 'ei.Khah ("how?", H0349B) — interrogative particle opening a rhetorical question that expects an implied answer of impossibility on its own.
• 'im ("if", H0518J) + lo' ("not", H3808) + ki ("that/deed", H3588A) — together these three particles form the compound construction "if not...that", functioning as "unless," introducing the exceptional condition that explains the otherwise impossible scenario.
• tzu.Ra ("rock", H6697H) — masculine singular noun in construct state, meaning "rock of," here bound to the following pronominal suffix to form "their rock."
• me.kha.Ra ("he had sold", H4376) — qal perfect, marking a completed action prior to the main clause's implied present situation; the subject is "their rock."
• his.gi.Ra ("he had delivered up", H5462) — hiphil (causative) perfect, paired with me.kha.Ra as a second completed action attributed to Yehovah (H3068G).

What the text says

The verse opens with the interrogative 'ei.Khah ("how?"), setting up a rhetorical question about disproportionate combat: one person ('e.Chad, H0259) pursuing a thousand ('E.lef, H0505G), and two (she.Na.yim, H8147, dual form) putting ten thousand (re.va.Vah, H7233) to flight. The verb yir.Dof ("will he pursue", H7291) is qal imperfect, and ya.Ni.su ("will they put to flight", H5127) is hiphil imperfect — the hiphil stem here carries causative force, "cause to flee," distinguishing it from a simple pursuit.

The second half of the verse answers the implied question with the compound particle sequence 'im...lo'...ki ("unless"), followed by two qal/hiphil perfect verbs describing prior completed actions: tzu.Ram ("their rock") me.kha.Ram ("he had sold them") and va.yhwh ("and Yehovah") his.gi.Ram ("he had delivered them up"). Both verbs take the third-person masculine plural suffix -m ("them", H9028/H9038), referring back to the collective group implied by the earlier "one" and "two." The construct noun tzu.Ra ("rock of") bound to "their" forms an epithet, "their Rock," which stands in parallel with the name Yehovah (H3068G) in the following clause — the two phrases work as parallel subjects of parallel completed actions (selling / delivering up).

Differences between versions

The Hebrew epithet tzu.Ram ("their rock") is rendered in the LXX as ho theos ("the God"), replacing the rock-image with a direct divine title, and in the Vulgate as Deus suus ("their God"), also abandoning the rock metaphor. The Hebrew Yehovah is rendered as Kyrios in the LXX and Dominus in the Vulgate, both meaning "Lord," consistent with the standard substitution pattern for the tetragrammaton in these versions. The English translations (BSB, RV1909, SBLIBRE) preserve "Rock" literally where the Hebrew has tzur-based imagery, differing from the LXX/Vulgate approach.