Deuteronomy 9:16

Summary

Moses recounts seeing that the people had sinned against Yehovah by making themselves a molten calf, and had quickly turned aside from the way that Yehovah had commanded them. The verse uses a chain of completed-action verbs to describe what Moses discovered upon his descent.

Key words

• 'E.re' ("I saw", H7200G) — qal narrative form; introduces the report of what Moses perceived, setting up the following clauses as the content of that sight.
• chata'Tem ("you had sinned", H2398) — qal perfect, 2nd person masculine plural; a completed action viewed from Moses' vantage point, describing the state already in effect when he arrived.
• 'egel ("a calf of", H5695) — masculine singular construct noun; grammatically bound to the following word, forming the phrase "calf of molten-metal."
• masse.Khah ("molten metal", H4541A) — feminine singular noun; completes the construct chain with 'egel, specifying the material/manufacture of the object.
• sar.Tem ("you had turned aside", H5493I) — qal perfect, 2nd person masculine plural; parallels the earlier perfects, describing departure from the commanded way as an already-accomplished fact.

What the text says

The verse is built as a sequence of four verbs, the first ('E.re', "I saw") in narrative form marking the speaker's perception, followed by three qal perfect verbs — chata'Tem ("you had sinned"), 'asi.Tem ("you had made", H6213H), and sar.Tem ("you had turned aside") — all in 2nd person masculine plural. This chain presents the people's actions as completed states discovered by Moses, rather than as actions unfolding before him. The interjection hi.Neh ("there!", H2009) functions to mark the moment of realization, introducing the content of what was seen with immediacy.

The phrase 'egel masse.Khah ("calf of molten-metal") uses a construct relationship: 'egel ("calf", H5695) is grammatically linked to masse.Khah ("molten metal", H4541A), so the calf is specified as being made of cast or molten material. The clause sar.Tem ma.Her ("you had turned aside quickly") pairs the perfect verb sar.Tem with the piel infinitive ma.Her ("quickly", H4118B), which functions adverbially to intensify the speed of the departure. The relative clause 'a.Sher-tzi.Vah Yehovah 'et.Khem ("which Yehovah had commanded you") uses the piel perfect tzi.Vah ("he had commanded", H6680) to specify the standard from which the people departed, with 'et (H0853) marking "you" as the direct object of the command.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders hi.Neh ("there!", H2009) with a participle (ἰδὼν, "having seen") rather than as a separate interjection, folding the perception directly into the main verb. The LXX also translates la.Yahweh ("to/against Yehovah") as ἐναντίον κυρίου ("before/against the Lord"), using a different preposition than the Hebrew la- ("to/for", H9005). The Vulgate's quam vobis ostenderat ("which he had shown you") differs from the Hebrew 'a.Sher-tzi.Vah ("which he had commanded", H6680), using a verb of showing rather than commanding.