Deuteronomy 33:10

Summary

The verse describes a group (grammatically "they," masculine plural) who teach Yehovah's mishpatim ("judgments") to Jacob and his torah ("law") to Israel, and who also place incense and a whole burnt offering on the altar. The two halves of the verse pair teaching activity with cultic/ritual activity performed by the same subject.

Key words

• yo.Ru ("they will teach", H3384B) — Hiphil (causative) imperfect, 3rd person masculine plural: a causative form meaning "to cause to know/instruct," pointing to an ongoing or future teaching function performed by an unnamed plural subject.
• mishpatekha ("your judgments", H4941G) — masculine plural construct with 2nd person suffix "your," linking the noun to the addressee (implicitly Yehovah, based on the suffix pattern continuing through the verse).
• toratekha ("your law", H8451) — feminine singular construct with 2nd person suffix, parallel in structure to mishpatekha, forming a poetic pair (judgments/law) assigned respectively to Jacob/Israel.
• ya.Si.mu ("they will put", H7760H) — Qal imperfect, 3rd person masculine plural: a non-causative form describing the direct placing of incense, shifting from the teaching activity to a ritual action performed by the same plural subject.
• khalil ("the whole offering", H3632) — masculine singular adjective functioning as a substantive, describing an offering that is "whole" or "entire," placed on the altar (mizbecha, H4196).

What the text says

The verse is built as two parallel bicola. The first pair — yoru mishpatekha le-Ya'aqov / ve-toratekha le-Yisra'el — uses one finite verb (yoru) governing both objects (mishpatekha, toratekha), each directed to a different name for the same people (Jacob/Israel), a common poetic device in this text. The second pair — yasimu qetorah be-'appekha / ve-khalil 'al-mizbechekha — again uses a single finite verb (yasimu) governing two objects (incense and the whole offering), both tied by construct suffixes to "your," indicating actions done for/toward the addressee.

The word 'appekha (H0639I, "your nose") is a construct form literally meaning "your nose," used idiomatically in Hebrew to denote presence ("before you," i.e., near one's face). The Hebrew grammar here presents qetorah ("incense") as placed "in your nose," an idiom for offering something directly before someone's presence, rather than a literal anatomical statement.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders be-'appekha ("in your nose," idiom for "before you") as ἐν ὀργῇ σου ("in your wrath/anger"), reading the same root (H0639 can denote "anger" elsewhere) differently from the presence-idiom sense. The Vulgate follows this same reading with in furore tuo ("in your fury"). The BSB and RV1909 render the idiom as "before You" / "delante de ti," following the presence sense rather than the anger sense. Additionally, the Vulgate presents the first colon without a finite verb ("Judicia tua, o Jacob, et legem tuam, o Israël"), addressing Jacob and Israel directly as vocatives, whereas the Hebrew and LXX retain a 3rd person plural verb (yoru / δηλώσουσιν) with Jacob and Israel as indirect objects.