Deuteronomy 4:7

Summary

The verse poses a rhetorical question: no nation is as great as one whose god(s) are near to it the way Yehovah is near to Israel whenever they call on him. The comparison hinges on nearness (qerovim) and on the act of calling (qor'enu).

Key words

• mi ("who?", H4310) — interrogative pronoun opening a rhetorical question that expects the answer "none."
• Goy Gadol ("great nation", H1471A + adjective) — construct phrase naming the hypothetical comparison-nation.
• 'Elohim ("a god", H0430G) — grammatically masculine plural noun, here functioning as the subject of the clause about nearness.
• qerovim ("near", H7138) — adjective in masculine plural, agreeing grammatically with the plural form of 'Elohim.
• qare'enu ("our calling", H7121G) — Qal infinitive with 1st person plural suffix, governed by the preposition be-khol ("in all"), expressing a repeated or comprehensive action ("in all our calling").

What the text says

The sentence is built as a rhetorical question introduced by ki mi ("for who..."), a construction that presents the negative answer implicitly: no nation matches Israel's situation. The relative clause 'asher-lo 'Elohim qerovim 'elav ("which has a god near to it") uses the plural noun 'Elohim together with the plural adjective qerovim, a grammatical agreement pattern found when 'Elohim functions with plural modifiers referring to the object of a nation's worship in general terms.

The comparison particle ka- attached to Yehovah ("like Yehovah") shifts from the generic 'Elohim of the hypothetical nation to the specific proper name Yehovah 'Eloheinu ("Yehovah our God"), where 'Eloheinu is a construct plural noun with a 1st person plural suffix ("God of us" / "our God"). The final clause be-khol qare'enu 'elav uses an infinitive construct (qare'enu, "our calling") governed by be-khol ("in all/whenever"), producing a temporal-distributive sense: nearness is tied to every instance of calling, not a single event.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the plural 'Elohim qerovim with a singular participle construction, θεὸς ἐγγίζων αὐτοῖς ("a god drawing near to them"), shifting from the Hebrew's plural noun-adjective pairing to a singular subject. The Vulgate instead preserves the plural sense with deos appropinquantes sibi ("gods drawing near to itself"), matching the Hebrew's plural morphology more closely than the LXX does. Both versions render the concluding comparative clause about Yehovah with singular terms (κύριος ὁ θεός, Deus noster), consistent with the Hebrew's use of the proper name Yehovah.