Deuteronomy 9:4

Summary

Moses warns Israel not to attribute the conquest of the land to their own righteousness. The verse contrasts two possible explanations for the nations' expulsion: Israel's merit versus the nations' own wickedness, and states that Yehovah's action is driven by the latter, not the former.

Key words

• to.Mar ("you say", H0559) — Qal jussive with the negation 'al ("may not", H0408); together they form a prohibition, "do not say," addressed to an individual (singular "you").
• ha.Dof ("drives out", H1920) — Qal infinitive construct preceded by the preposition ba ("when/in", H9003); this infinitive-with-preposition construction creates a temporal clause, "when [Yehovah] drives out," rather than a finite verb.
• tzid.ka.T-i ("my righteousness", H6666 + H9020) — a construct noun with first-person suffix, meaning "the righteousness belonging to me"; it is the stated (and rejected) reason for possession.
• he.vi.'A-ni ("he has brought me", H0935P) — Hiphil perfect, a completed causative action ("caused me to enter"), used in the quoted false claim.
• mo.ri.Sha-m ("dispossessing them", H3423H) — Hiphil participle, expressing an ongoing or characteristic action ("the one causing them to be dispossessed"), contrasting with the completed he.vi.'A-ni used just before.

What the text says

The verse is built as a prohibition ('al-to.Mar, "do not say") governing a quoted first-person statement introduced by le.Mor ("saying", H0559 infinitive). Before the quotation, a temporal clause using the infinitive construct ha.Dof ("in the driving-out of") sets the scene: the prohibition applies at the moment Yehovah expels the nations "from before you" (mi-le-fanekha, H6440G + suffix). This phrase mi-panekha appears twice in the verse — once introducing the temporal clause and once closing the final clause — framing the whole verse between two mentions of "before you."

The quoted claim uses tzidkati ("my righteousness") as the professed cause of the perfect-tense action hevi'ani ("he brought me"), describing the possession of the land as already accomplished. The verse then shifts to the true stated cause: rish'at ha-goyim ha-'elleh ("the wickedness of these nations", H7564), governing the participle morisham ("is dispossessing them"). The switch from perfect verb (hevi'ani) to participle (morisham) marks a shift from a completed personal claim to an ongoing divine action attributed to the nations' condition rather than Israel's merit.

Differences between versions

The Vulgate renders hadof ("drives out") with deleverit ("has destroyed"), and later morisham with deletae sint ("have been destroyed"), using a more absolute term than the Hebrew H1920/H3423 root (driving out/dispossessing, which implies displacement rather than destruction). The LXX (Swete) text provided ends after "κληρονομῆσαι τὴν γῆν τὴν ἀγαθὴν ταύτην" ("to inherit this good land") and does not include a Greek clause corresponding to the Hebrew's second half about "the wickedness of these nations"; the data given shows no LXX wording for rish'at ha-goyim ha-'elleh yehovah morisham mipanekha.