Deuteronomy 4:37

Summary

The verse explains that Yehovah's love for the patriarchs ("your fathers") was the reason he chose their descendants and personally brought the addressee out of Egypt. The action moves from a completed state of love to two sequential narrative acts: choosing the offspring and bringing them out "by his own presence" and "by his great power."

Key words

• Tachat...ki (H8478J + H3588A) — a compound causal construction, literally "under [the fact] that," rendered "because"; it introduces the entire clause as the ground for what follows.
• 'Ahav (H0157G) — qal perfect, "he loved," a completed background state that motivates the subsequent actions rather than continuing the narrative sequence.
• Va-yivchar (H0977) — narrative (vav-consecutive) verb, "and he chose," the first of two sequential main actions built on the perfect 'ahav.
• Zar'o (H2233H) — "his offspring," singular noun with a 3rd-person masculine singular suffix ("his"), whose referent (a single ancestor vs. the fathers collectively) is grammatically singular though the preceding noun 'avoteikha ("your ancestors," H0001G) is plural.
• Va-yyotzi'akha (H3318H) — hiphil (causative) narrative verb, "and he caused you to go out," shifting the object to the singular "you" (kha, H9031) even though the fathers/offspring language has been plural or collective.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built on one causal clause (tachat ki 'ahav..., "because he loved...") followed by two verbs in the narrative vav-consecutive chain: va-yivchar ("and he chose") and va-yyotzi'akha ("and he brought you out"). The perfect verb 'ahav sets a completed prior condition, while the two narrative verbs advance the storyline as sequential consequences of that love. Grammatically, the suffixes on zar'o ("his offspring") and acharav ("after him," H0310A) are singular, even though they follow the plural 'avoteikha ("your ancestors"), leaving the precise antecedent (a single father, or the fathers treated as one) formally ambiguous in the Hebrew. The final phrase stacks two prepositional expressions, be-fanav ("by his face/presence," H6440H) and be-khocho ha-gadol ("by his great power," H3581B + H1419A), both governed by the same causative verb, describing the manner of the deliverance from Egypt.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew be-fanav ("by his presence/face") is rendered in the LXX with an emphatic pronoun, αὐτὸς ("he himself"), omitting the literal "face" imagery, and in the Vulgate as præcedens ("going before"), an interpretive participle rather than a literal "presence." Additionally, where the Hebrew zar'o and acharav carry singular suffixes ("his offspring... after him"), the LXX renders them with plural forms, τὸ σπέρμα αὐτῶν μετ' αὐτούς ("their seed... after them"), aligning the pronouns with the plural "fathers" rather than preserving the Hebrew's singular suffix pattern.