Deuteronomy 9:3

Summary

Moses tells Israel that they are to recognize on "this day" that Yehovah their God himself is the one who crosses over ahead of them, described as a devouring fire. He himself will destroy and subdue the nations, and Israel will then dispossess and annihilate them quickly, exactly as Yehovah had spoken.

Key words

• ya.da'.Ta ("you will know", H3045) — qal sequential perfect; continues the narrative chain from the previous verse, framing the whole statement as a coming realization.
• hu' ("he", H1931) — personal pronoun repeated three times (with ha-'over, with yashmidem, with yakhni'em), giving emphatic focus: it is he (Yehovah) who crosses, he who destroys, he who subdues.
• 'o.Ver ("[one who is] passing over", H5674A) — qal active participle; describes an ongoing/imminent action, paired with the pronoun hu' to form the construction "he [is] the one crossing."
• 'o.khe.Lah ("consuming", H0398) — qal participle, feminine, agreeing with 'esh ("fire," H0784); together they form an appositional phrase "fire, a consuming one," not a full clause with "is."
• ma.Her ("quickly", H4118B) — piel infinitive functioning adverbially, modifying the manner of the final destruction described by ha.'a.vad.Ta ("you will destroy them", H0006).

What the text says

The verse opens with the sequential perfect ve.ya.da'.Ta ("and you will know"), linking it to the preceding context as a continuing narrative action rather than an isolated command. The clause introduced by ki ("that/if", H3588A) states the content of what is to be known: Yehovah 'Eloheikha hu ha-'over lefanekha — "Yehovah your God, he [is] the one crossing before you." Here the pronoun hu' (H1931) is placed before the participle 'over (H5674A), a common Hebrew way of marking emphatic identification of the subject: it is specifically he, not merely an army or an angel, who goes ahead.

The description continues with the appositional phrase 'esh 'okhelah ("fire, consuming", H0784 + H0398), two nouns/participles standing side by side without a linking verb in the Hebrew — the "is" found in some translations is supplied by the receptor language, not present in the Hebrew text itself. The pronoun hu' recurs twice more, before yashmidem ("he will destroy them", H8045) and before yakhni'em ("he will subdue them", H3665), both hiphil (causative) imperfects, reinforcing that these destructive and subduing actions belong to Yehovah's own initiative before Israel acts. Only after these three hu'-marked actions does the text shift to second-person verbs — horashtam ("you will dispossess them", H3423H) and ha'avadtam ("you will destroy them", H0006), both hiphil sequential perfects — describing Israel's own subsequent action, done maher ("quickly", H4118B), matching ka'asher dibber Yehovah lakh ("as Yehovah spoke to you").

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the participle construction hu ha-'over ("he [is] the one crossing") as a finite present verb, προπορεύεται ("goes before"), losing the pronoun-plus-participle emphatic structure of the Hebrew. Where the Hebrew has a single participle 'okhelah ("consuming"), the Vulgate uses two words, devorans atque consumens ("devouring and consuming"), expanding one Hebrew participle into a doubled phrase. The Hebrew appositional phrase "fire, a consuming one" (no copula) appears in the LXX as a separate clause with an explicit verb, πῦρ καταναλίσκον ἐστιν ("it is a consuming fire").