Deuteronomy 8:16

Summary

The verse continues a description of Yehovah as the one who fed the people manna in the wilderness, food unknown to their ancestors. It states the purpose of this action using a chain of infinitives: to humble, to test, and ultimately to do good in the end.

Key words

• ma'akhil'kha ("caused to eat", H0398) — hiphil participle, masculine singular construct; presents Yehovah as the ongoing causative agent of feeding "you."
• yade'un ("they had known", H3045) — qal perfect with paragogic nun (H9013), an archaic emphatic ending marking completed past action of the ancestors' ignorance.
• lema'an ("so as/in order that", H4616) — subordinating particle introducing purpose; appears twice, structuring the verse into parallel purpose clauses.
• 'anotekha ("to humble you", H6031B) — piel infinitive construct with pronominal suffix; intensive stem indicating deliberate, active humbling.
• nasotekha ("to put you to the test", H5254G) — piel infinitive construct with suffix, parallel in form to 'anotekha, forming a matched pair of purposes.
• heitiv'kha ("to do good to you", H3190) — hiphil infinitive construct with suffix; causative stem, contrasting with the preceding piel forms, marking a shift in outcome.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built around the participle ma'akhil'kha ("the one causing you to eat", H0398), which functions substantively, continuing to describe Yehovah from the preceding verses. This participle governs the object man ("manna", H4478A) and the locative phrase ba-midbar ("in the wilderness", H4057B). The relative clause asher lo yade'un avotekha ("which your ancestors had not known") uses the paragogic nun on yade'un, an emphatic verbal ending that underscores the completeness of the ancestors' unfamiliarity with this food.

The final section presents three infinitival purpose clauses linked by lema'an ("so as", H4616), each with a second-person pronominal suffix ("you"): 'anotekha ("to humble you"), nasotekha ("to test you"), and le-heitiv'kha ("to do good to you"). The first two use the piel stem, an intensive verbal pattern, while the third shifts to hiphil, a causative pattern. This grammatical shift from piel to hiphil marks a movement from the actions of humbling/testing to the causative act of "doing good," positioned as occurring be-acharitekha ("in your end/latter part", H0319).

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the paragogic nun form yade'un simply as ᾔδεισαν ("they had known"), without any marker corresponding to the emphatic Hebrew ending. The Vulgate's afflixit ac probavit ("he afflicted and tested") condenses the two piel infinitives 'anotekha and nasotekha into finite past-tense verbs, differing from the Hebrew's infinitival, purpose-clause structure. The Vulgate also adds misertus est tui ("he had mercy on you") where the Hebrew has le-heitiv'kha ("to do good to you"), introducing a distinct verb choice not present in the Hebrew lexeme H3190.