Deuteronomy 7:12

Summary

The verse opens a new paragraph in Deuteronomy 7, describing what follows from Israel's observance of "these judgments": if the people hear, keep, and do them, then Yehovah their God will in turn keep for them the covenant and the chesed he swore to their ancestors. The sentence is built as a chain of consequence rather than a strict legal conditional.

Key words

• 'Ekev ("consequence", H6118) — a rare noun (literally "heel") used adverbially to mean "as a result of" or "because"; it frames what follows not as a bare condition ("if") but as an outcome tied to prior action.
• tishme'un ("you will hear", H8085G) — qal imperfect, 2nd person masculine plural, with paragogic nun adding emphasis; expresses ongoing or repeated hearing/obeying.
• mishpatim ("judgments", H4941G) — masculine plural noun with definite article and demonstrative 'elleh ("these"), pointing back to previously stated legal rulings.
• chesed ("covenant loyalty", H2617A) — masculine singular noun paired with berit ("covenant", H1285); denotes the steadfast loyalty bound to the covenant relationship.
• nishba' ("he swore", H7650) — niphal perfect, 3rd person masculine singular; the niphal stem here carries a reflexive/self-involving sense of swearing an oath.

What the text says

The verse is structured as a sequence of verbs joined by the narrative/sequential vav: ve-hayah ("and it will be"), tishme'un ("you will hear"), she-mar-tem ("you will keep"), va-'asitem ("you will do"), and finally ve-shamar ("he will keep"). This chain does not use the standard conditional particle 'im ("if"); instead, 'ekev ("consequence") signals that Yehovah's future action of keeping the covenant and chesed follows as a direct outcome of Israel's hearing, keeping, and doing the mishpatim ("judgments"). The paragogic nun on tishme'un adds rhetorical weight to the act of hearing.

The object of Yehovah's future action is doubled: ha-berit ("the covenant") and ha-chesed ("the covenant loyalty"), both marked by the object particle 'et and joined by ve- ("and"). Both are further specified by the relative clause 'asher nishba' la-'avoteikha ("which he swore to your fathers"), where nishba' (niphal perfect) indicates the completed, self-binding act of oath-swearing performed toward the ancestors.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew 'ekev ("consequence/result") is rendered in the LXX as ἐὰν ("if"), turning the result-clause into a standard conditional. The Vulgate's Si postquam ("if after") combines both conditional and temporal senses, differing from the Hebrew's causal-consequential nuance. The LXX translates chesed as ἔλεος ("mercy") and the Vulgate as misericordiam ("mercy"), both narrowing the semantic range of chesed toward compassion rather than covenantal loyalty. Mishpatim appears as δικαιώματα ("ordinances") in the LXX and judicia ("judgments") in the Vulgate, both consistent with the Hebrew sense of legal rulings.