Deuteronomy 34:4

Summary

Yehovah speaks to Moses, confirming that the land he now sees is the one promised by oath to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob for their descendants. Yehovah states that Moses has been permitted to see the land with his own eyes, but he will not cross over into it.

Key words

• nishba'ti ("I swore", H7650) — niphal perfect, first person; a completed, binding act of oath-taking, grammatically reflexive/passive in form though functioning as an active declaration by Yehovah.
• zar'akha ("your offspring", H2233H) — masculine singular noun in construct with the pronominal suffix "your," marking the recipient of the land grant as Moses's addressee's descendants (referring back to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob).
• etennenah ("I will give it", H5414G) — qal imperfect, first person, with a feminine object suffix ("it," referring to ha'aretz, "the land"), expressing a future/ongoing act of giving.
• her'iti ("I have let see", H7200G) — hiphil perfect, first person; the causative stem shows Yehovah as the agent who caused Moses to see, not merely that Moses saw on his own.
• ta'avor ("you will pass over", H5674A) — qal imperfect, second person masculine, negated by lo' ("not", H3808), describing a future action explicitly denied to Moses.

What the text says

The verse is built around three linked declarations by Yehovah, each anchored to a perfect-tense verb of past completed action followed by an imperfect verb of future consequence. First, nishba'ti ("I swore") establishes the historical oath to the three patriarchs, introduced by the relative particle asher ("which", H0834A) modifying ha'aretz ("the land", H0776G). The oath's content is introduced by the infinitive le'mor ("saying", H0559) and restated in direct speech: le-zar'akha etennenah — "to your offspring I will give it" — where the feminine suffix on etennenah refers back to ha'aretz.

The second clause shifts to Moses directly: her'itikha be'eineikha ("I have let you see [it] with your own eyes"), using the hiphil form her'iti to stress that the seeing was caused by Yehovah, not incidental. The dual noun 'eineikha ("your eyes", H5869A) with the possessive suffix underscores personal, direct sight rather than report.

The final clause, veshammah lo ta'avor ("and there you will not cross over"), uses the directional form shammah (H8033G plus H9011) — "there" combined with a directional marker — paired with the negated imperfect ta'avor, producing a firm denial of future entry rather than a simple past-tense refusal.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew elav ("to him", H0413+H9033) leaves the addressee unnamed by pronoun alone; the LXX makes this explicit with πρὸς Μωυσῆν ("to Moses"), while the Vulgate retains the pronoun ad eum ("to him"), matching the Hebrew's indirectness.

The Hebrew ta'avor ("you will pass over") is rendered in the LXX as εἰσελεύσῃ ("you will enter"), a different verb than "crossing," while the Vulgate transibis ("you will cross over") stays closer to the Hebrew sense of passing through or over.