Deuteronomy 4:32

כִּי שְׁאַל־נָא לְיָמִים רִֽאשֹׁנִים אֲשֶׁר־הָיוּ לְפָנֶיךָ לְמִן־הַיּוֹם אֲשֶׁר בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים׀ אָדָם עַל־הָאָרֶץ וּלְמִקְצֵה הַשָּׁמַיִם וְעַד־קְצֵה הַשָּׁמָיִם הֲנִֽהְיָה כַּדָּבָר הַגָּדוֹל הַזֶּה אוֹ הֲנִשְׁמַע כָּמֹֽהוּ׃

✦ Hebrew interlinear

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✦ The same verse in five languages

Hebrew

כִּ֣י שְׁאַל־נָא֩ לְיָמִ֨ים רִֽאשֹׁנִ֜ים אֲשֶׁר־הָי֣וּ לְפָנֶ֗יךָ לְמִן־הַיּוֹם֙ אֲשֶׁר֩ בָּרָ֨א אֱלֹהִ֤ים׀ אָדָם֙ עַל־הָאָ֔רֶץ וּלְמִקְצֵ֥ה הַשָּׁמַ֖יִם וְעַד־קְצֵ֣ה הַשָּׁמָ֑יִם הֲנִֽהְיָ֗ה כַּדָּבָ֤ר הַגָּדוֹל֙ הַזֶּ֔ה א֖וֹ הֲנִשְׁמַ֥ע כָּמֹֽהוּ׃

Greek (Septuagint)

ἐπερωτήσατε ἡμέρας προτέρας τὰς γενομένας προτέρας σου ἀπὸ τῆς ἡμέρας ἧς ἔκτισεν ὁ θεὸς ἄνθρωπον ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς, καὶ ἐπὶ τὸ ἄκρον τοῦ οὐρανοῦ ἕως ἄκρου τοῦ οὐρανοῦ, εἰ γέγονεν κατὰ τὸ ῥῆμα τὸ μέγα τοῦτο, εἰ ἤκουσται τοιοῦτο·

Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0

Latin (Vulgate)

Interroga de diebus antiquis, qui fuerunt ante te ex die quo creavit Deus hominem super terram, a summo cælo usque ad summum ejus, si facta est aliquando hujuscemodi res, aut umquam cognitum est,

Spanish

Porque pregunta ahora de los días pasados, que fueron antes de ti, desde el día en que Dios creó al hombre sobre la tierra, y desde un extremo del cielo hasta el otro, si ha habido algo tan grande como esto, o se ha oído como esto?

Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)

Porque pregunta ahora de los tiempos pasados, que han sido antes de ti, desde el día que crió Dios al hombre sobre la tierra, y desde el un cabo del cielo al otro, si se ha hecho cosa semejante á esta gran cosa, ó se haya oído otra como ella.

English

Indeed, ask now from one end of the heavens to the other about the days that long preceded you, from the day that God created man on earth: Has anything as great as this ever happened or been reported?

✦ What the text says

Summary

The verse instructs the listener to inquire about the entire span of past time — from the earliest days after humankind's creation to the present — and across the entire spatial span of the heavens, asking whether anything comparable to "this great thing" has ever happened or been heard of. It combines a temporal scope (from creation onward) with a spatial scope (from one end of the sky to the other) to frame a rhetorical question about uniqueness.

Key words

she.'al- ("ask", H7592) — qal imperative, a direct command to the addressee (masculine singular "you"), reinforced by the particle na' ("please", H4994), softening the command into an invitation.
ba.Ra' ("he created", H1254A) — qal perfect, third person, describing a single completed act attributed to 'E.lo.Him ("God", H0430G), a plural noun used with a singular verb.
ha.Yu ("they were", H1961) — qal perfect of the same root that later appears in niphal form (nih.Yah), marking the existence of the "former days" as a completed state.
nih.Yah ("has it happened", H1961) — niphal perfect, passive/reflexive nuance, asking whether an event "came to be," paired with the interrogative ha (H9008).
nish.Ma' ("has it been heard", H8085G) — niphal perfect, passive nuance, paralleling nih.Yah in a second interrogative clause introduced by 'o ("or", H0176A).

What the text says

The sentence opens with ki ("that/if", H3588A) governing the imperative she.'al-na' ("ask, please"), directing attention le.ya.Mim ri.sho.Nim ("to the former days", H3117G + H7223H). The relative clause 'a.Sher ha.Yu le.fa.Neikha ("which were before you") uses the qal perfect ha.Yu to anchor those days as prior to the addressee, with fa.Nei ("before/face", H6440G) in construct form plus the second-person suffix kha ("your").

A second relative clause specifies the starting point more precisely: le.min ha.yoM 'a.Sher ba.Ra' 'E.lo.Him 'a.Dam ("from the day when God created humankind"). Here ba.Ra' is a qal perfect describing a completed divine act, and 'a.Dam ("humankind", H0120G) appears without the definite article, functioning as a generic term rather than a proper name in this construction.

The spatial expansion follows with two construct phrases built on k.Tzeh/ke.Tzeh ("end of", H7097A), both governing ha.sha.Ma.yim ("the heavens", H8064): "from the end of the heavens... to the end of the heavens," marking totality by merism.

The final two clauses are formal yes/no questions marked by the interrogative ha (H9008) prefixed to each niphal perfect verb: ha.nih.Yah ("has it happened") and ha.nish.Ma' ("has it been heard"), joined by 'o ("or"). The niphal stem in both verbs shifts the focus from an agent to the event or report itself — something "coming to be" or "being heard" — rather than someone doing or hearing. The object of both questions is ka.Da.var ha.ga.doL ha.Zeh ("like this great thing") and ka.Mohu ("like it," H3644G + suffix H9033), repeating the comparison in each clause.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the Hebrew's two questions (ha.nih.Yah, ha.nish.Ma') with εἰ γέγονεν and εἰ ἤκουσται, using εἰ ("if/whether") instead of a direct interrogative marker, which shifts the surface form toward an indirect question. The Vulgate similarly uses si facta est and si... cognitum est, matching the LXX's conditional-style phrasing rather than a direct interrogative construction. Both the LXX and Vulgate omit an explicit equivalent for the opening particle ki ("that/if", H3588A) and the softening interjection na' ("please", H4994), rendering the initial command more plainly as "ask" without the added courtesy marker present in the Hebrew.

This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.