Deuteronomy 4:30

Summary

The verse describes a conditional sequence: in a future time of distress, when "all these things" befall the addressee, he will turn back to Yehovah his God and listen to his voice. The syntax presents a temporal/conditional clause followed by two consequences joined by sequential verb forms.

Key words

• Tzar ("it is distress", H6862B) — adjective functioning as a predicate noun, introduced by ba ("in the"), setting the temporal condition "when it is distress for you."
• me.tza.'U ("they will come upon", H4672) — qal sequential perfect, continuing the narrative chain begun by the preceding clause; the subject is "all the things" (H1697I).
• shav.Ta ("you will return", H7725G) — qal sequential perfect, second-person masculine singular, marking the first main consequence of the temporal clause.
• 'a.cha.Rit ha.yamim ("end of the days", H0319/H3117G) — construct phrase, "end of" governing "the days," locating the return in a future period.
• sha.ma'.Ta be.qolo ("you will listen to his voice", H8085H/H6963A) — qal sequential perfect + construct noun with third-person suffix, the second consequence, parallel in form to shav.Ta.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence opens with a compound temporal clause: ba-tzar lekha ("when it is distress for you") followed by u-metza'ukha kol ha-devarim ha-'elleh ("and all these things will come upon you"), both set in "the end of the days" (be-'acharit ha-yamim). The verb me.tza.'U is a sequential perfect (vav + perfect), a form that in Biblical Hebrew narrative or legal sequences continues the logical chain from a preceding clause — here functioning almost like a future consequence tied to the distress condition.

The apodosis contains two verbs in the same sequential perfect pattern: shav.Ta ("you will return") and sha.ma'.Ta ("you will listen"), both second-person masculine singular, addressed to a single implied addressee despite the plural verb me.tza.'U ("they will find you") in the protasis — a grammatical shift from plural subject (the things) to singular addressee (the one experiencing them). The word 'elo.Hei.kha ("your God", H0430G) is morphologically plural but construct with a singular referent, a common feature of this noun when referring to Yehovah. The final clause, ve-shama'ta be-qolo ("and you will listen to his voice"), uses qol ("voice") in construct with the third-person suffix "his," referring back to Yehovah.

Differences between versions

The LXX begins directly with "καὶ εὑρήσουσίν σε πάντες οἱ λόγοι οὗτοι" ("and all these words will find you"), without an explicit rendering of ba-tzar lekha ("in your distress") as a separate clause. The Vulgate similarly opens with "Postquam te invenerint omnia quae praedicta sunt" ("After all the things that were foretold will have found you"), also omitting an explicit distress clause and adding the interpretive phrase "praedicta sunt" ("were foretold"), which is not present in the Hebrew ha-devarim ha-'elleh ("these things/words").