Deuteronomy 4:45

Summary

The verse introduces a collection of legal material by naming three categories — testimonies, statutes, and judgments — and attributes their spoken transmission to Moses, addressed to the people of Israel, situated temporally at the moment of their departure from Egypt.

Key words

• 'Eleh ("these", H0428) — demonstrative particle opening the verse, pointing forward to the list that follows; it functions as the subject of a nominal (verbless) clause.
• 'edot ("testimonies", H5713B) — feminine plural noun with the definite article ha- (H9009), the first of three legal terms named.
• chuqqim ("statutes", H2706G) — masculine plural noun, also articulated, the second term in the triad.
• dibber ("he spoke", H1696G) — piel perfect of the verb, denoting completed, intensive speech-action; grammatical subject is Mosheh ("Moses", H4872).
• tze'tam ("their coming out", H3318G+H9048) — qal infinitive with pronominal suffix "their," forming a temporal clause "when they came out," modified further by mi-Mitzrayim ("from Egypt", H4714G).

What the text says

The verse opens with a verbless (nominal) clause: 'Eleh ha-'edot ve-ha-chuqqim ve-ha-mishpatim — "These [are] the testimonies and the statutes and the judgments." The demonstrative 'Eleh (H0428) stands as subject, and the three nouns, each marked with the definite article ha- (H9009) and joined by the conjunction ve- (H9002), form a compound predicate naming categories of material. All three nouns appear in the plural (feminine for 'edot, masculine for chuqqim and mishpatim), and their coordination by repeated ve- gives equal grammatical weight to each term rather than subordinating one to another.

The relative clause 'asher dibber Mosheh 'el-benei Yisra'el ("which Moses spoke to the sons of Israel") uses the piel perfect dibber (H1696G), an intensive stem indicating a completed act of speaking, with Mosheh (H4872) as agent and benei Yisra'el (H1121G construct + H3478) as recipient. The construct form benei ("sons of") links directly to Yisra'el, forming a single phrase "sons of Israel."

The final clause, be-tze'tam mi-Mitzrayim ("when/in their coming out from Egypt"), uses the qal infinitive tze'tam (H3318G) with the preposition be- (H9003, here rendered temporally as "when") and the pronominal suffix "their" (H9048), plus mi- (H9006, "from") attached to Mitzrayim (H4714G). This infinitive construction with suffix expresses a temporal circumstance attached to the main verb dibber, situating the speech-event at the time of the exodus from Egypt.

Differences between versions

The Vulgate renders chuqqim (H2706G, "statutes") as cæremoniæ ("ceremonies"), a term with ritual connotations not explicit in the Hebrew noun itself. The LXX uses δικαιώματα for the same word, a term closer to "righteous acts/ordinances." The Hebrew 'el-benei Yisra'el ("to the sons of Israel") is rendered in the LXX as τοῖς υἱοῖς Ἰσραὴλ ("to the sons of Israel"), matching closely, while the BSB renders it as "to them," omitting the explicit "Israel" reference at that point in the English rendering.