Deuteronomy 4:12

Summary

The verse describes Yehovah speaking to the people from within the fire at Horeb. The Israelites heard the sound of words but perceived no visible form, only a voice.

Key words

• va-yedaBer ("and he spoke", H1696G) — piel narrative verb; the intensive stem marks emphatic, direct speech, chaining the action to what precedes.
• mi-Tokh ("from the middle of", H8432) — construct noun with prefixed preposition mi ("from"), locating the speech as issuing from inside the fire rather than merely near it.
• Kol devaRim ("a sound of words", H6963H + H1697G) — construct chain: "sound" governs "words," describing an audible phenomenon rather than a seen object.
• shome'Im ("hearing", H8085G) — qal participle, masculine plural, describing the people's ongoing act of hearing as a state, not a completed single event.
• ro'Im ("seeing", H7200G) — qal participle, masculine plural, paired with 'einKhem ("your not," H0369) to form a negated participial clause: "you were not seeing."

What the text says

The verse's grammar builds a deliberate contrast between hearing and seeing. The first clause uses the narrative verb yedaBer ("he spoke," H1696G) with Yehovah as subject, followed by 'aleiKhem ("to you," H0413+H9036) and mi-Tokh ha-'Esh ("from the middle of the fire," H8432+H9009+H0784), establishing the fire as the source-point of the speech.

The second half shifts from finite narrative verbs to participles, a common Hebrew construction for describing ongoing or characteristic states rather than single completed actions. 'aTem shome'Im ("you were hearing," H0859D+H8085G) presents the people as continuously perceiving Kol devaRim ("a sound of words," H6963H+H1697G) — the construct phrase treats the words as a property of the sound itself. This is balanced against temuNah 'einKhem ro'Im ("a form you were not seeing," H8544+H0369+H7200G), where 'einKhem negates the participle ro'Im, producing a stative negation ("you are not seeing") rather than a simple past negative. The final word zulaTi Kol ("except a voice," H2108+H6963A) uses a second, distinct form for "voice" (H6963A) from the earlier "sound" (H6963H), narrowing the sole perceptible element to voice alone, excluding any visual form.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders Kol devaRim as φωνὴν ῥημάτων ("voice of words") and adds a relative clause ἣν ὑμεῖς ἠκούσατε ("which you heard"), making explicit what the Hebrew participle shome'Im leaves as a participial state. The Vulgate similarly shifts to a finite perfect, "audistis" ("you heard"), and adds "ejus" ("his") after "verborum," specifying the words as God's own — a possessive not present in the Hebrew construct chain. The Vulgate also renders temuNah as "formam ... penitus" ("form ... completely"), adding emphasis absent from the Hebrew noun itself.