Deuteronomy 7:23

Summary

Deuteronomy 7:23 states that Yehovah the God of the addressee will hand over the enemy nations before him, and that he (Yehovah) will throw them into a great confusion until they are destroyed. The verse continues a narrative sequence describing divine action against these nations.

Key words

• netanam ("he will deliver up", H5414G) — qal sequential perfect with 3rd person plural suffix "them"; continues the narrative chain begun by the preceding verses, marking a completed future action from the narrator's viewpoint.
• Yehovah ("Yehovah", H3068G) — the divine name, subject of both verbs in this verse.
• le-fanei-kha ("before you", H6440G + H9021) — construct noun "face of" plus 2ms suffix, forming the idiom "before you/in your presence," indicating the enemies are placed under the addressee's control.
• hamam ("he will confuse", H2000) — qal sequential perfect with 3rd person plural suffix "them," parallel in form to netanam, showing Yehovah as agent of the confusion.
• hishamedam ("their being destroyed", H8045) — niphal infinitive with 3rd person plural suffix, a passive/reflexive form meaning "in their being destroyed," used after ad ("until", H5704) to mark the endpoint of the confusion.

What the text says

The verse is built on two parallel clauses joined by the narrative vav (H9001), each opening with a sequential perfect verb whose subject is Yehovah Elohei-kha ("Yehovah your God", H3068G + H0430G). The first clause, u-netanam Yehovah Elohei-kha le-fanei-kha, uses the idiom le-fanei-kha ("before you") to describe the nations being placed in front of the addressee, rather than specifying a means such as hands or power. The second clause, ve-hamam mehumah gedolah, pairs the verb hamam ("he will confuse") with the cognate-sounding noun mehumah ("confusion", H4103) modified by the adjective gedolah ("great", H1419A), producing an internal emphasis on the intensity of the disorder inflicted. The clause concludes with ad hishamedam, where the niphal infinitive construction expresses the destruction as a state reached by the enemies themselves, without naming an explicit agent at that final point, distinguishing it grammatically from the two preceding active verbs whose agent is explicitly Yehovah.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders le-fanei-kha ("before you") as εἰς τὰς χεῖράς σου ("into your hands"), introducing the image of physical control absent from the Hebrew idiom; the Vulgate's in conspectu tuo ("in your sight") stays closer to the Hebrew "before you." For the second clause, the LXX shifts to a second-person verb, ἀπολεῖς ("you will destroy"), making the addressee the agent, whereas the Hebrew hamam keeps Yehovah as agent; the Vulgate's interficiet ("he will kill") preserves a third-person subject. The Hebrew's paired terms hamam / mehumah gedolah ("confusion... great confusion") is rendered in the LXX as ἀπολεῖς... ἀπωλίᾳ μεγάλῃ ("destroy... with great destruction"), replacing the semantic field of confusion with one of destruction.