Deuteronomy 33:26

Summary

The verse declares that no deity compares to the God of Yeshurun (a poetic name for Israel), describing him as one who rides across the heavens to bring help and moves through the skies in majesty. The sentence uses parallel poetic structure to depict divine power in cosmic, spatial terms.

Key words

• 'ein ("there not", H0369) — construct form functioning as a negation of existence, here meaning "there is none [like]."
• 'El ("God", H0410G) — masculine singular noun, the generic term for deity, paired with the following proper name.
• Yeshurun ("Jeshurun", H3484) — proper noun referring to Israel poetically; stands in apposition to 'El, marking whose God is being described.
• rokhev ("rider/one who rides", H7392) — qal participle, masculine singular; participles function as ongoing or characteristic action, portraying God's riding as a continuous attribute rather than a single event.
• ga'avato ("his majesty/pride", H1346) — feminine singular construct noun with 3rd person masculine suffix ("his"), naming the quality by which the following noun (clouds) is characterized.

What the text says

The clause opens with 'ein ("there is not") followed by the preposition ka ("like") attached to 'El ("God"), producing the sense "there is none like God." Yeshurun stands immediately after, functioning in apposition — identifying whose God is meant, namely the God belonging to or associated with Yeshurun (Israel).

The second half of the verse is built on the participle rokhev ("one who rides"), which takes shamayim ("heaven", H8064, masculine plural) as its object, followed by the prepositional phrase be'ezrekha ("for your help," H5828 with 2nd person suffix). The parallel line repeats the construction pattern: the preposition u've ("and in") governs ga'avato ("his majesty"), a construct noun with a 3rd person suffix, followed by shechakim ("clouds", H7834, masculine plural). The two lines mirror each other poetically: heavens/help in the first line, majesty/clouds in the second, with the participle rokhev implicitly carrying over to govern both cosmic objects (heavens and clouds) in synonymous parallelism typical of Hebrew poetry.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders 'El Yeshurun not as "God of Jeshurun" but as "God of the beloved" (τοῦ ἠγαπημένου), interpreting or substituting the proper name Yeshurun with a descriptive term. The Vulgate similarly departs from a transliteration, rendering it "Deus rectissimi" ("God of the most righteous one"), also treating Yeshurun as a descriptive title rather than a proper name. Modern translations (BSB, RV1909, SBLIBRE) retain the proper name "Jeshurun/Jesurún," following the Hebrew more directly.