Deuteronomy 7:8

Summary

Deuteronomy 7:8 explains why Yehovah acted on behalf of the people: not because of any merit on their part, but because of his own love and because he kept the oath sworn to their ancestors. As a result, he brought them out of Egypt with a strong hand and redeemed them from a house of slaves, from the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt.

Key words

• 'a.ha.Vat ("[the] love of", H0160) — construct infinitive form linked to Yehovah, indicating that the cause of the action is Yehovah's own love, not an external reason.
• sha.me.R ("because kept", H8104G) — infinitive form parallel to 'a.ha.Vat, forming a second cause alongside "love": Yehovah's keeping of the oath.
• nish.Ba' ("he swore", H7650) — niphal perfect, describing a completed act of swearing; the niphal stem here carries a reflexive/passive nuance often used for oath-taking.
• ho.Tzi' ("he brought out", H3318H) — hiphil perfect, causative form: Yehovah is the one who causes the people to go out, not merely accompanies them.
• yif.de. ("he redeemed", H6299) — qal form attached to the narrative vav (H9001), continuing the sequence of completed actions started by ho.Tzi'.

What the text says

The verse opens with the particle ki ("for", H3588A), introducing the reason for the preceding statement (not represented in this word list but referred to in v.7). Two parallel causes are given, each introduced by the preposition me ("from", H9006): first 'a.ha.Vat Yehovah 'etkhem ("the love of Yehovah [toward] you"), and second mishamer... 'et-hashevu'ah ("because of keeping the oath"). Both phrases use infinitive construct forms functioning nominally, so structurally the sentence reads as "because of the love of Yehovah... and because of the keeping of the oath...", making the causation grammatically parallel and cumulative rather than sequential.

The oath itself is qualified by the relative clause 'asher nishba' la'avoteikhem ("which he swore to your fathers"), using the niphal perfect nishba' — a stem regularly associated with oath vocabulary in Hebrew.

After establishing the double cause, the main clauses shift to hiphil and qal perfects: hotzi' Yehovah 'etkhem beyad chazakah ("Yehovah brought you out with a strong hand") and, connected by the narrative vav, vayifdekha mibeit 'avadim ("and he redeemed you from a house of slaves"). The hiphil stem of hotzi' marks Yehovah as the causative agent of the exodus, while the qal form yifde describes the redemption as a direct completed action. The final phrase, miyad Par'oh melekh-Mitzrayim ("from the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt"), specifies the agent from whom the people were redeemed, using the construct chain melekh-Mitzrayim ("king of Egypt") to identify Pharaoh's title.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the double causal construction with ἀλλὰ παρὰ τὸ ἀγαπᾷν κύριον ὑμᾶς ("but because of the Lord's loving you") and καὶ διατηρῶν τὸν ὅρκον ("and keeping the oath"), preserving the two parallel causes but using a participial form (διατηρῶν) rather than a separate infinitive construction as in the Hebrew. The Vulgate simplifies with two finite verbs, dilexit ("he loved") and custodivit ("he kept"), turning the infinitive-based Hebrew causal clauses into straightforward finite verbs, which shifts the grammatical emphasis from "the love/keeping" as abstract causes to direct past actions performed by Yehovah.