Exodus 20:6

וְעֹשֶׂה חֶסֶד לַאֲלָפִים לְאֹהֲבַי וּלְשֹׁמְרֵי מִצְוֹתָֽי׃ ס

✦ Hebrew interlinear

Tap a word to see its entry

✦ The same verse in five languages

Hebrew

וְעֹ֥֤שֶׂה חֶ֖֙סֶד֙ לַאֲלָפִ֑֔ים לְאֹהֲבַ֖י וּלְשֹׁמְרֵ֥י מִצְוֹתָֽי׃ ס

Greek (Septuagint)

καὶ ποιῶν ἔλεος εἰς χιλιάδας τοῖς ἀγαπῶσίν με καὶ τοῖς φυλάσσουσιν τὰ προστάγματά μου.

Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0

Latin (Vulgate)

et faciens misericordiam in millia his qui diligunt me, et custodiunt præcepta mea.

Spanish

pero muestro amor inagotable por mil generaciones a los que me aman y obedecen mis mandamientos.

Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)

Y que hago misericordia en millares á los que me aman, y guardan mis mandamientos.

English

but showing loving devotion to a thousand generations of those who love Me and keep My commandments.

✦ What the text says

Summary

The verse describes an agent who performs chesed ("covenant loyalty", H2617A) toward thousands, specifically directed to those who love this agent and keep his commandments. The Hebrew presents this as a continuing participial action, contrasting with a preceding negative consequence (not shown in this fragment) through the connective ve ("and", H9002).

Key words

'Oseh ("doing", H6213A) — qal participle, masculine singular: describes an ongoing, characteristic action rather than a single completed event.
chesed ("covenant loyalty", H2617A) — masculine singular noun: the direct object of the participle, denoting a relational quality shown toward others.
'ohaVai ("[those who] love", H0157G) — qal participle, masculine plural construct with pronominal suffix -i ("me", H9030): grammatically bound to the following object, forming "lovers of me."
shomeRei ("[those who] keep", H8104G) — qal participle, masculine plural construct: parallels 'ohaVai in form, governing mitzvoTai ("my commandments").
mitzvoTai ("my commandments", H4687 + H9020) — feminine plural noun with construct form and suffix -i ("my"): the object kept by the second group of participants.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built entirely on participles functioning as substantives: 'Oseh ("doing"), 'ohaVai ("[those who] love"), and shomeRei ("[those who] keep"). This participial construction in Biblical Hebrew often expresses habitual or characteristic action rather than a one-time event, so the sense is of continuous conduct rather than an isolated act.

The two construct chains — 'ohaVai ("lovers of me") and shomeRei mitzvoTai ("keepers of my commandments") — are grammatically parallel, both introduced by the preposition le ("to", H9005). This parallelism links "loving" and "keeping commandments" as two expressions of the same relational stance, without the Hebrew text itself stating that one causes or defines the other; the syntax simply coordinates them under the same recipient of chesed.

The phrase la'alaFim ("to thousands", H0505G) uses a plural cardinal number without a specified noun (such as "generations"), leaving the referent of "thousands" grammatically open in the Hebrew.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders chesed as ἔλεος ("mercy"), and the Vulgate as misericordiam ("mercy" or "compassion") — both narrowing the semantic range of chesed, which in the Hebrew lexicon carries a broader sense of "covenant loyalty" or steadfast relational commitment, not limited to mercy.

The Hebrew la'alaFim ("to thousands") is translated literally by LXX (χιλιάδας, "thousands") and Vulgate (millia, "thousands"), while the BSB adds "generations" ("to a thousand generations"), a word not present in the Hebrew, Greek, or Latin texts shown here.

This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.