Deuteronomy 9:7

Summary

Deuteronomy 9:7 commands Israel to remember and not forget how they provoked Yehovah in the wilderness. The verse spans the entire journey from Egypt to the current location, summarizing the whole period as one of persistent rebellion against Yehovah.

Key words

• zeKhor ("remember", H2142) — qal imperative, a direct command to perform an ongoing act of recollection.
• tishKach ("you forget", H7911) — qal jussive with the negation 'al ("may not", H0408), forming a prohibition parallel to the first imperative: "remember — do not forget."
• hikTzafta ("you provoked to anger", H7107) — hiphil perfect, a causative form: the subject caused Yehovah's anger, not merely felt it.
• mamRim ("rebelling", H4784) — hiphil participle, masculine plural, describing an ongoing or characteristic state rather than a single event.
• heyiTem ("you have been", H1961) — qal perfect, paired with the participle mamRim to form a periphrastic construction expressing sustained duration ("you have been [continually] rebelling").

What the text says

The verse opens with two paired verbal commands: zeKhor ("remember", H2142), a positive imperative, followed immediately by 'al-tishKach ("do not forget", H0408 + H7911), a negative jussive. This doubling — command plus prohibition of its opposite — reinforces the same instruction from two grammatical angles rather than adding new content.

The object of memory is introduced by 'asher ("that/who", H0834A) functioning as a relative particle, governing the clause hikTzafta 'et-Yehovah 'eloheiKha — "you provoked Yehovah your God to anger" (H7107, hiphil, causative perfect). The phrase 'eloheiKha ("your God", H0430G construct + H9021 suffix) ties the divine name to the addressee directly.

The temporal scope is marked by a compound preposition lemin-hayyom ("from the day", H9005+H4480A+H3117G), followed by a second 'asher clause specifying the starting point (yaTzata me'eretz Mitzrayim, "you came out from the land of Egypt") and an ending point ('ad-bo'aKhem 'ad-hammaqom hazzeh, "until your coming to this place"). The final clause uses the hiphil participle mamRim ("rebelling", H4784) combined with the perfect heyiTem ("you have been", H1961) — a periphrastic construction in Hebrew that expresses continuous or repeated action across the entire span just described, rather than a single past act.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew closes with 'im-Yehovah ("with Yehovah", H5973A + H3068), using a preposition of association. The LXX renders this as τὰ πρὸς κύριον ("the things toward the Lord"), and the Vulgate as adversum Dominum ("against the Lord") — both versions shift the relational preposition toward a more oppositional sense than the Hebrew 'im ("with") itself denotes.