Deuteronomy 7:21

Summary

The verse instructs that the addressee should not be terrified before "them" (referring to nations mentioned in surrounding context), giving as reason that Yehovah the addressee's God is present in their midst, described as a great and awesome God.

Key words

• ta.'a.Rotz ("you must be terrified", H6206) — Qal imperfect, 2nd person masculine singular, expressing an ongoing or future prohibition when combined with the negation lo' ("not", H3808).
• pe.nei.Hem ("before them", H6440L + H9028) — construct plural noun pe.nei with 3rd person masculine plural suffix, forming the idiom "from the face of them," i.e., "before them" or "because of them."
• 'e.lo.Hei.kha ("your God", H0430G + H9021) — construct plural noun with singular meaning ("God") plus 2nd person masculine singular suffix, directly tying the divine title to the addressee.
• kir.Be.kha ("your midst", H7130G + H9021) — construct singular noun with 2nd person masculine singular suffix, locating Yehovah spatially "in your midst."
• no.Ra' ("awesome", H3372H) — Niphal participle, masculine singular, literally "the one being feared/causing fear," functioning here as an adjective paired with ga.Dol ("great", H1419A).

What the text says

The sentence opens with a negated imperfect verb, lo' ta.'a.Rotz ("you must not be terrified"), addressed to a singular masculine subject. The source of the potential terror is expressed through the construct phrase mi.pe.nei.Hem ("from the face of them"), an idiom meaning "because of them" or "before them," referring back to a group mentioned earlier in the passage (grammatically marked only by the 3rd person plural suffix Hem).

The causal clause introduced by ki ("for", H3588A) supplies the reasoning: Yehovah 'e.lo.Hei.kha be.kir.Be.kha — "Yehovah your God [is] in your midst." Note that the preposition be. ("in", H9003) has no explicit verb "to be" in the Hebrew; the clause is nominal, meaning the sense of "is" is supplied by the syntax itself, not by an overt verb. This is followed by an appositional phrase, 'el ga.Dol ve.no.Ra' ("a God great and awesome"), where 'el ("a God", H0410G) restates the divine identity with two adjectival qualifiers: ga.Dol ("great") and the participle no.Ra' ("awesome," literally "one who causes fear/is feared").

Differences between versions

The LXX renders no.Ra' ("awesome") as kraiaios ("mighty" per the Greek κραταιός), differing from "awesome/terrible" found in the Hebrew participle and reflected in the Vulgate's terribilis ("terrible") and RV1909's terrible. The BSB and SBLIBRE render it as "awesome"/"temible" (fearsome), closer to the Hebrew's sense of inspiring fear, while the LXX's choice of "mighty" shifts the semantic emphasis toward strength rather than fear-inducing quality.