Deuteronomy 4:27
וְהֵפִיץ יְהוָה אֶתְכֶם בָּעַמִּים וְנִשְׁאַרְתֶּם מְתֵי מִסְפָּר בַּגּוֹיִם אֲשֶׁר יְנַהֵג יְהוָה אֶתְכֶם שָֽׁמָּה׃
✦ Hebrew interlinear
Tap a word to see its entry
✦ The same verse in five languages
וְהֵפִ֧יץ יְהוָ֛ה אֶתְכֶ֖ם בָּעַמִּ֑ים וְנִשְׁאַרְתֶּם֙ מְתֵ֣י מִסְפָּ֔ר בַּגּוֹיִ֕ם אֲשֶׁ֨ר יְנַהֵ֧ג יְהוָ֛ה אֶתְכֶ֖ם שָֽׁמָּה׃
καὶ διασπερεῖ Κύριος ὑμᾶς ἐν πᾶσιν τοῖς ἔθνεσιν, καὶ καταλειφθήσεσθε ὀλίγοι ἀριθμῷ ἐν τοῖς ἔθνεσιν εἰς εὶς εἰσάξει κύριος ὑμᾶς ἐκεῖ.
Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0
Latin (Vulgate)
atque disperget in omnes gentes, et remanebitis pauci in nationibus, ad quas vos ducturus est Dominus.
El Señor los dispersará entre los pueblos, y quedarán pocos en número entre las naciones a las que el Señor los lleve.
Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)
Y Jehová os esparcirá entre los pueblos, y quedaréis pocos en número entre las gentes á las cuales os llevará Jehová:
Then the LORD will scatter you among the peoples, and only a few of you will survive among the nations to which the LORD will drive you.
✦ What the text says
Summary
The verse describes Yehovah scattering the people among the peoples, so that only a small remnant will survive among the nations to which Yehovah will drive them. It uses a chain of sequential perfect verbs to present this as a continuous unfolding narrative outcome.
Key words
- he.Fitz ("he will scatter", H6327A) — hiphil (causative) sequential perfect: Yehovah is the direct causal agent of the scattering, not a passive process.
- nish.'ar.Tem ("you will be left", H7604) — niphal (passive/reflexive) sequential perfect: the people undergo the action of "remaining," framed as something that happens to them rather than something they do.
- me.Tei ("men of", H4962) — masculine plural construct noun, paired with mis.Par ("number", H4557) to form the idiom "men of number," i.e., a small, countable group.
- ye.na.Heg ("he will drive away", H5090A) — piel (intensive) imperfect: describes an intensified or repeated future driving action, distinct in stem from the earlier hiphil he.Fitz.
- 'a.Sher ("where/that", H0834A) — relative particle introducing the clause that specifies the destination nations.
What the text says
The verse is built from two coordinated sequential-perfect clauses joined by the narrative ve ("and", H9001), which continues the sequence of consequences begun earlier in the passage. The first clause states that Yehovah (Yah.weh, H3068G) will scatter (he.Fitz) "you" (object marker 'et + suffix khem) ba.'Ammim, "among the peoples" (H5971A). The second clause shifts to the niphal nish.'ar.Tem, presenting the people as the ones "left remaining," modified by the construct phrase me.Tei mis.Par, "men of number," an idiomatic way of saying a small, easily counted group.
The third element is a relative clause introduced by 'a.Sher, describing "the nations" (ba.Goyim, H1471A) where the imperfect piel verb ye.na.Heg — "he will drive away" — describes Yehovah's ongoing or future action of driving the people to their location, marked by the directional sha.mah ("there," with directional he, H8033G/H9011). Notably, the Hebrew uses two different terms for the destination groups: 'ammim ("peoples") in the first clause and goyim ("nations") in the second, and two different verb stems (hiphil he.Fitz vs. piel ye.na.Heg) for the two actions of scattering and driving.
Differences between versions
The LXX renders both 'ammim and goyim with the single Greek term ἔθνεσιν ("nations"), collapsing the Hebrew's distinction between "peoples" and "nations." Both the LXX (πᾶσιν τοῖς ἔθνεσιν, "all the nations") and the Vulgate (in omnes gentes, "into all nations") add "all," a qualifier not present in the Hebrew ba.'Ammim, which simply reads "among the peoples."
This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.