Deuteronomy 4:31

Summary

The verse gives the reason (introduced by ki, H3588A) for Yehovah's continued presence with Israel despite past unfaithfulness: he is described as a compassionate God who will not abandon, destroy, or forget the ancestral covenant he swore to uphold.

Key words

• 'el ("God", H0410G) — the base word for deity, here in apposition with rachum, forming the predicate "a compassionate God" before Yehovah's name is even introduced.
• rachum ("compassionate", H7349) — masculine singular adjective describing 'el; a quality-term rather than a proper name, functioning as the divine epithet grounding the promises that follow.
• yarpekha ("he will abandon you", H7503) — hiphil (causative) imperfect with 2ms suffix; the imperfect aspect signals ongoing or future non-occurrence, reinforced by the preceding negation lo' (H3808).
• yishkach ("he will forget", H7911) — qal imperfect, third of the three negated verbs; unlike the two hiphil forms before it, this is a simple (qal) stem, marking a shift from causative actions (abandoning, destroying) to a cognitive one (forgetting).
• nishba' ("he swore", H7650) — niphal perfect; the niphal stem here carries a reflexive/self-involving sense ("swore an oath upon himself"), and the perfect aspect marks the oath as a completed past act underlying the present assurance.

What the text says

The sentence opens with the causal particle ki ("for/because", H3588A), which frames the whole verse as the grounds for a preceding statement of confidence. The predicate structure "'el rachum Yehovah 'Eloheikha" places the noun 'el ("God") and the adjective rachum ("compassionate") before the divine name and its construct form 'Eloheikha ("your God", H0430G with 2ms suffix), so the descriptive quality of the deity is stated before he is named — a common Hebrew word order where predicate adjective/noun precedes the subject in a nominal clause.

Following this, three parallel clauses each begin with the negation lo' ("not", H3808) plus a verb in the imperfect: yarpekha ("he will abandon you"), yashchitekha ("he will destroy you"), and yishkach ("he will forget"). The first two are hiphil (causative) forms describing decisive external actions; the third shifts to qal, describing a mental/relational failure (forgetting), and takes a direct object marked by 'et (H0853, untranslated) before berit 'avoteikha ("the covenant of your fathers", a construct chain: berit, H1285, "covenant of," + 'avoteikha, H0001G, "your fathers"). The final relative clause, introduced by 'asher ("which", H0834A), uses the niphal perfect nishba' ("he swore") to anchor the covenant in a past completed oath, with the object marked by lahem ("to them", H9038).

Differences between versions

The Vulgate renders the second negated verb with an added intensifier, "nec omnino delebit" ("nor will he utterly destroy"), where the Hebrew yashchitekha has no equivalent to "omnino" ("entirely"). The LXX preserves the threefold negation structure but varies the negating particles (οὐκ vs. οὐδέ) rather than repeating one form as the Hebrew does with lo' three times. The Vulgate's closing clause, "in quo juravit patribus tuis" ("in which he swore to your fathers"), restates "your fathers" explicitly, while the Hebrew relative clause ends more compactly with the pronominal suffix lahem ("to them"), referring back to 'avoteikha already stated earlier in the verse.