Deuteronomy 32:35

Summary

Deuteronomy 32:35 declares that vengeance and retribution belong exclusively to the speaker (Yehovah, in context), to be executed at a specific future moment when the enemies' stability fails. The verse states their downfall is imminent and rapidly approaching.

Key words

• naqam ("vengeance", H5359) — masculine singular noun, paired with li ("to me") in a nominal sentence with no verb "to be," meaning "vengeance [belongs] to me."
• shillem ("retribution", H8005) — masculine singular noun joined by ve ("and") to naqam, forming a doublet of related concepts.
• tamut ("it will slip", H4131) — qal imperfect, marking ongoing or future action; describes the foot's failure as not-yet-completed.
• chash ("it hastens", H2363A) — qal sequential perfect, continuing the narrative chain begun by the preceding clause with ki ("for", H3588A).
• 'atidot ("impending things", H6264) — feminine plural adjective, functioning as a substantive ("things that are ready/imminent") and serving as the subject of chash.

What the text says

The verse opens with a nominal (verbless) sentence: li naqam ("to me [is] vengeance"), followed by ve-shillem ("and retribution"), attaching a second noun to the first without a connecting verb. This construction places ownership of both concepts—vengeance and retribution—with the speaker, without specifying a verbal action like "I will repay." The next clause, le-'et tamut ragla-m ("for the time [when] their foot will slip"), uses the imperfect tamut to indicate a future, not-yet-realized event tied to a specific "time" ('et, H6256).

The causal clause ki qarov yom 'eidam ("for near [is] the day of their disaster") uses a construct chain, yom ("day of", H3117G) plus 'eidam ("their disaster"), tying the disaster directly to a specific day. The final clause shifts to a sequential perfect verb, ve-chash ("and it hastens"), whose subject is the plural adjective 'atidot ("impending things")—a grammatically feminine plural form functioning as an abstract noun, "the things prepared/imminent." The suffix lamo (H9038, "to them") specifies these impending events are directed at a third-person plural group.

Differences between versions

The LXX opens with "ἐν ἡμέρᾳ ἐκδικήσεω" ("in the day of vengeance"), a prepositional phrase differing structurally from the Hebrew nominal sentence "to me [is] vengeance." The Vulgate adds an explicit first-person verb, "ego retribuam" ("I will repay"), which is not present in the Hebrew's verbless construction. At the verse's end, the LXX reads "πάρεστιν ἕτοιμα ὑμῖν" ("the ready things are present to you," second person plural), where the Hebrew lamo is third person plural ("to them").