Deuteronomy 32:51

Summary

Yehovah explains to Moses the reason he will not enter the land: an act of unfaithfulness committed "among the children of Israel" at the waters of Meribah-Kadesh in the wilderness of Zin, described specifically as a failure to treat Yehovah as holy in the sight of the people.

Key words

• me'alTem ("you acted unfaithfully", H4603) — qal perfect, 2nd person masculine plural: a completed act of breach of trust or unfaithfulness, introduced by 'al 'asher ("on/because that").
• qiddashTem ("you honored as holy", H6942G) — piel perfect, 2nd person masculine plural, negated by lo' ("not", H3808): the piel stem gives an intensive/causative sense, "to treat as holy" or "to cause to be regarded as holy," not merely "to be holy."
• toKh ("among", H8432) — construct singular noun, repeated twice in the verse, each time governing beNei Yisra'El ("[the] people of Israel", H1121G + H3478), framing both offenses as occurring in full view of the community.
• meriVat ("Meribah", H4809H) — feminine singular construct, linked to mei ("waters of", H4325G) and further specified by kaDesh ("Kadesh", H6946H), naming the exact location.
• midbar-Tzin ("wilderness of Zin", H4057B + H6790) — construct chain giving the broader geographic setting beyond the specific waters.

What the text says

The verse is built on two parallel clauses, each introduced by the phrase 'al 'asher ("on that/because that," H5921A + H0834A), a causal construction explaining the grounds for a preceding statement (Moses' exclusion from the land, stated in the prior verse). The first clause uses me'alTem bi ("you acted unfaithfully against me"), a qal perfect describing a completed act of breach of trust, with the 1st-person suffix -i ("me", H9030) as its object via the preposition bi ("against/in me"). The second clause, also introduced by 'al 'asher, is negated: lo' qiddashTem 'oti ("you did not treat me as holy"). Here the verb is in the piel stem, which intensifies or gives a causative nuance to the root — not simply "you were not holy" but "you did not cause/treat [me] as holy," with 'oti ("me", H0853+H9030) marked explicitly as direct object.

Both clauses are anchored by the identical phrase betoKh benei Yisra'El ("in the midst of the children of Israel," H8432+H1121G+H3478), repeated verbatim at the end of each clause. This repetition ties the unfaithfulness and the failure to sanctify directly to the public setting — the action occurred visibly among the assembled people, not privately. The location itself is given in a chain of construct nouns: mei meriVat kaDesh ("waters of Meribah of Kadesh") followed by midbar Tzin ("wilderness of Zin"), stacking geographic specificity from water source to region.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders me'alTem bi as ēpeithēsate tō rhēmati mou ("you disobeyed my word"), shifting the object from the divine person ("against me") to "my word/statement," where the Hebrew has the preposition bi ("in/against me", H9003+H9030) directly. The Vulgate's praevaricati estis contra me ("you have transgressed against me") stays closer to the Hebrew's personal object. For the second clause, the LXX's ouch hēgiasate me ("you did not sanctify me") and the Vulgate's non sanctificastis me both use a simple verb corresponding to the piel qiddashTem, without reflecting the intensive/causative nuance as distinctly as some modern renderings (e.g., SBLIBRE's "no defendieron mi santidad," "you did not defend my holiness").