Deuteronomy 6:10

Summary

The verse opens a long conditional/temporal clause describing what will happen when Yehovah brings the people into the land promised by oath to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It specifically anticipates the possession of large, good cities that the people themselves did not build.

Key words

• ve.haYah ("it will be", H1961/H9001) — sequential perfect with narrative vav, functioning here to open a future temporal clause ("and it shall be [that]...").
• ye.vi.'aKha ("he will bring you", H0935P) — hiphil (causative) imperfect: Yehovah is the causal agent who "brings in," not merely one who "enters."
• nishBa' ("he swore", H7650) — niphal perfect of the oath-verb, marking a completed past act whose effect (the promise) still governs the present clause.
• Tet ("to give", H5414G) — qal infinitive, dependent on the oath: the content of what was sworn is "to give" the land.
• va.Ni.ta ("you built", H1129) — qal perfect, 2nd person masculine singular, negated by lo' ("not", H3808), describing an action the addressee did not perform.

What the text says

The sentence is structured as a temporal-conditional frame: ve.haYah ("and it will be") plus ki ("that/when", H3588A) sets up a future scenario, and the main clause's content follows the description of the land. The subject of the causative verb ye.vi.'aKha is Yehovah 'e.lo.Heikha ("Yehovah your God", H3068G/H0430G), and the object suffix -Kha ("you", H9031) marks the addressee as the one being brought in — the grammar keeps Yehovah as sole active agent of the "bringing," while the addressee is passive recipient of the action.

The relative clause 'a.Sher nishBa' la.'a.voTeikha ("which he swore to your fathers", H0834A/H7650) attaches to ha'Aretz ("the land", H0776G), and the three patriarchs — 'Avraham (H0085), Yitzchak (H3327), Ya'aKov (H3290) — are listed in apposition to "your fathers," clarifying who received the oath. The infinitive Tet ("to give", H5414G) explains the content of the oath: what was sworn was an act of giving, not just a general promise. The final relative clause, 'a.Sher lo' vaNita ("which you did not build", H3808/H1129), uses a qal perfect describing a completed non-action by the addressee, contrasting the recipient's non-labor with the land's existing infrastructure — the cities are described only as ge.doLot ("large", H1419A) and toVot ("good", H2896A), both feminine plural adjectives agreeing with 'a.Rim ("cities", H5892B).

Differences between versions

The LXX and Vulgate render ki with temporal conjunctions (ὅταν, "whenever"; cumque, "and when") rather than a strict conditional, aligning with translations like BSB ("when") rather than a hypothetical "if." The BSB inserts "a land with" before "great and splendid cities," an addition not present as a separate lexical item in the Hebrew text, which places "cities" directly as the object of Tet ("to give") without an intervening noun for "land" in that clause.