Deuteronomy 4:20

Summary

The verse states that Yehovah took the addressed group ("you," masculine plural) and brought them out from what is described as "the furnace of iron," identified as Egypt, so that they would become a "people of inheritance" for him, a status that continues "as this day."

Key words

• la.Kach ("he took", H3947) — qal perfect, third person masculine singular; marks a completed action with Yehovah as subject, placed before the verb's own subject name for emphasis in the clause order.
• Yahweh ("Yehovah", H3068) — the divine name functioning as the grammatical subject of both la.Kach and the following verb.
• i.yo.Tzi' ("he brought out", H3318) — hiphil (causative) form joined to the narrative va ("and", H9001); the causative stem shows Yehovah as the one causing the going-out, not merely accompanying it.
• Kur ("furnace of", H3564) — construct noun, joined to ha.bar.Zel ("the iron", H1270), forming the phrase "furnace of the iron," a construct chain where the first noun is defined by the second.
• 'Am ("people of", H5971A) — construct noun linked to na.cha.Lah ("inheritance", H5159), forming "people of inheritance," another construct pairing describing the resulting status of the group.

What the text says

The clause opens with ve.'et.Khem ("and you," H9002 + H0853 + H9036), placing the object pronoun before the verb la.Kach ("he took", H3947) and before the subject Yehovah (H3068). This front-positioning of the object is a marked word order in Hebrew, setting up a contrast with what precedes the verse in the source text (the pronoun "you" is highlighted as the counterpart to another group). The verb la.Kach is a qal perfect, indicating a single completed act of "taking."

The narrative continues with va.i.yo.Tzi' ("and he brought out", H3318), a hiphil form carrying causative force — the subject is not simply leaving but is caused to leave by an external agent, again Yehovah. The phrase mi.Kur ha.bar.Zel ("from the furnace of the iron", H3564 + H1270) is a construct chain functioning as a descriptive label for the place of origin, which the following phrase mi.mitz.Ra.yim ("from Egypt", H4714) identifies directly, placed in apposition to the "furnace of iron" phrase.

The purpose clause li.h.Yot lo le.'Am na.cha.Lah ("to become for him a people of inheritance") uses the infinitive h.Yot ("to become", H1961) governed by the preposition li ("to", H9005), expressing intended result. The construct 'Am na.cha.Lah ("people of inheritance", H5971A + H5159) forms a single descriptive unit. The final phrase ka.Yom ha.Zeh ("as this day", H3117 + H2088) uses the preposition ka ("as the", H9004) with the demonstrative Zeh ("this", H2088) to mark a point of comparison extending to the time of speaking.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the subject as ὁ θεός ("God") where the Hebrew has Yehovah (H3068). The LXX also shifts pronouns mid-verse, using ὑμᾶς ("you") with ἔλαβεν but then ἡμᾶς ("us") with ἐξήγαγεν, whereas the Hebrew consistently uses the second-person plural suffix -Khem ("you", H9036) throughout. The Vulgate follows the Hebrew structure closely, rendering Dominus ("the Lord") as subject and preserving the "iron furnace" and "day" phrases without the pronoun shift seen in the LXX.