Deuteronomy 4:8

Summary

Deuteronomy 4:8 poses a rhetorical question asking whether any nation possesses statutes and judgments as righteous as the law that Moses is presently setting before the people. The verse emphasizes the comparative uniqueness of this body of law through a structure of parallel questioning.

Key words

• goy ("nation", H1471A) — masculine singular noun, the subject of the rhetorical question, paired with the adjective "great."
• chuqqim ("statutes", H2706G) — masculine plural noun, one of two paired legal terms describing the content given to the nation.
• mishpatim ("judgments", H4941G) — masculine plural noun, forms a fixed pair with chuqqim, together covering the totality of legal material.
• tzadiqim ("righteous", H6662) — masculine plural adjective, agreeing in number with the two preceding nouns and qualifying both.
• noten ("[am] setting", H5414H) — qal participle masculine singular, expresses ongoing/present action of Moses giving the law, rather than a completed past act.

What the text says

The verse opens with the interrogative mi ("who/what?", H4310) attached to goy gadol ("a nation great", H1471A + H1419A), forming the rhetorical question "and what great nation." This is followed by the relative clause introduced by asher ("which", H0834A) with the prepositional phrase lo ("to it/his", H9005+H9033), meaning "which has" or "belonging to it." The clause states that this nation has chuqqim u-mishpatim tzadiqim — "statutes and judgments righteous." Grammatically, the adjective tzadiqim is plural and stands after both nouns, applying to the combined pair rather than to each noun separately in isolation.

The second half of the verse uses ke-khol ("like all of", H9004+H3605), a construct form meaning "according to all of," to introduce the comparison: ha-torah ha-zot ("this law", H8451+H2063). The relative clause that follows, asher anokhi noten lifneikhem ha-yom ("which I am setting before you this day"), uses the participle noten (H5414H) rather than a finite past-tense verb, which in Hebrew narrates the action as being enacted in the present moment of speaking, at the very time referenced by ha-yom ("the day", H3117G). The phrase li-fnei-khem ("before you", H9005+H6440G+H9026) uses the construct noun penei ("face/before") with a second person plural suffix, literally "to the face of you (plural)."

Differences between versions

The Vulgate renders the opening interrogative expansively as "Quae est enim alia gens sic inclyta" ("For what other nation is so renowned"), adding "alia" ("other") and "sic inclyta" ("so renowned"), terms not present as separate lexical items in the Hebrew, which has only mi goy gadol. The LXX uses ποῖον ἔθνος μέγα ("what kind of great nation"), closer to the Hebrew interrogative structure. The Vulgate also renders chuqqim and mishpatim tzadiqim as "caeremonias, justaque judicia" ("ceremonies, and just judgments"), splitting the paired righteous-qualifier differently than the Hebrew's single adjective governing both plural nouns.