Deuteronomy 1:14

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

You answered me, and said, The thing which you have spoken is good [for us] to do.

World English Bible · Public Domain

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וַֽתַּעֲנ֖וּ

ʻânâh

H6030

“and · to answer”

Conjunction + Verb, Qal, Sequential Imperfect, 2nd Person, Masculine, Plural

Appears 329× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears at Genesis 18:27

Full BDB Definition

Origin: a primitive root

TWOT: 1650 , 1653

to answer, respond, testify, speak, shout - (Qal) - to answer, respond to - to testify, respond as a witness - (Niphal) - to make answer - to be answered, receive answer - (Qal) to sing, utter tunefully - (Qal) to dwell

About this verse

These counts appear in no published source. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged text and Lemma’s own curated glosses. What Lemma adds →

8: words
8: distinct lemmas
Pentateuch: section

Grammatical profile

4 verbs
1 noun
1 adjective
2 particles

Verb forms

וַֽתַּעֲנ֖וּ Qal · Sequential Imperfect
וַתֹּ֣אמְר֔וּ Qal · Sequential Imperfect
דִּבַּ֖רְתָּ Piel · Perfect
לַעֲשֽׂוֹת Qal · Infinitive Construct

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 17 words from the Hebrew and 17 from the Septuagint (LXX English) — the same length.

A rough comparison of the two English renderings, which tokenize alike — not a word-level alignment.

Word counts can differ between the Hebrew and the Greek without any difference in meaning — e.g. the Hebrew direct-object marker אֵת has no separate Greek word, and Greek often adds the article ὁ.

In the original languages it is 8 Hebrew tokens and 11 Greek tokens — but the two are counted differently (Hebrew bundles its prefixes and suffixes into one token; the Greek is in lemma form), so that isn’t a like-for-like length.

Hebrew and Greek witnesses Masoretic Hebrew ↔ Greek Septuagint

The same verse in the two great witnesses to the Old Testament, shown verse-for-verse.

These are two independent witnesses, not word-aligned to each other, and the Septuagint is shown in lemma (dictionary) form.

Hebrew Deuteronomy 1:14 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

וַֽתַּעֲנ֖וּ אֹתִ֑י וַתֹּ֣אמְר֔וּ טֽוֹב הַדָּבָ֥ר אֲשֶׁר דִּבַּ֖רְתָּ לַעֲשֽׂוֹת

You answered me, and said, The thing which you have spoken is good [for us] to do.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX Deuteronomy 1:14 Septuagint · lemma form

καί ἀποκρίνω ἐγώ καί εἶπον καλός ὁ ῥῆμα ὅς λαλέω ποιέω

And you⌃ answered me and said, The thing which you have told us is good to do.

LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) · Public Domain

Hebrew: Westminster Leningrad Codex (CC BY 4.0). Greek: Septuagint (public domain); English from LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) (Public Domain). How the Septuagint differs from the Hebrew →

Targum (Aramaic paraphrase)

The Targum is the ancient Jewish Aramaic paraphrase of the Hebrew Scriptures — an interpretive translation, not the Hebrew text itself. Onkelos (literal) and Pseudo-Jonathan (expansive) render the Torah, and Jonathan the Prophets. Coverage is partial: where no permissively-licensed English translation exists for a verse, only the Aramaic is shown. This is verse-level text, not a word-by-word alignment to the Hebrew.

Targum Onkelos Torah (Genesis–Deuteronomy)

וַאֲתֶבְתּוּן יָתִי וַאֲמַרְתּוּן תַּקִין פִּתְגָמָא דִי מַלֶלְתָּא לְמֶעְבָּד

(no public-domain English translation for this verse)

Targum Onkelos — Aramaic: “Onkelos Genesis” (public domain); “Onkelos Exodus” (public domain); “Onkelos Leviticus” (public domain); “Onkelos Numbers” (public domain); “Onkelos Deuteronomy” (public domain). English: “Sefaria Community Translation” (CC0 1.0 (public-domain dedication)); “J.W. Etheridge. The Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan Ben Uzziel on the Pentateuch. London: Longmans, Green, 1862” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan Torah (Genesis–Deuteronomy)

וְאַתֵיבְתִּין יָתִי וַאֲמַרְתּוּן תַּקִּין פִּתְגָמָא דְמַלֵּילְתָּא לְמֶעֱבַד

And you answered me and said: The thing that thou hast spoken it is right for us to do.

Targum Pseudo-Jonathan — Aramaic: “Targum Jonathan on Genesis” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Exodus” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Leviticus” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Numbers” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Deuteronomy” (public domain). English: “The Targum of Jonathan ben Uzziel, trans. J. W. Etheridge, London, 1862” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.

Commentary

Notes on Deuteronomy 1:14 from classic Christian and Jewish commentators (each source and its license shown beneath its notes). The classic Christian expositions comment on the surrounding passage and are grouped to its opening verse, so a note may address several verses; the Jewish commentaries on the Tanakh (Rashi and others) are per-verse, so they appear only where the commentator wrote on this verse.

Lemma curates 59 commentaries, every one of them public domain or Creative Commons licensed, each selected and text-cleaned for this edition rather than reprinted as found. About our sources →

John Gill's Exposition

And ye answered me and said,.... As the speech of Moses to the people is not expressed before, so neither this answer of theirs to him:

the thing which thou hast spoken is good for us to do; to look out for and present persons to him as before described; this they saw was for their own good and profit, as well as for the ease of Moses, and therefore readily agreed to it.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

The Pulpit Commentary

Vers. 14, 15. The people approved of the proposal, and acted upon it; and Moses accordingly appointed the persons selected to be chiefs over thousands, and over hundreds, and over fifties, and ever tens; (Mat_7:1) but his rebuke of the censorious spirit is not to be read as forbidding the framing of such judgments upon the character, actions, and pretensions of others as the circumstances of our position may render necessary. We are called every day of our lives to form, and frequently to express, judgments upon men, measures, causes, theories, disputes, proposals; judgments as to true and false, right and wrong, wise and unwise, expedient and inexpedient. Matters are appealed to us as individuals, or as a part of the general community, on which judgment is expressly asked. We must judge that we may know how to act. All this involves the possibility of judging rashly; of judging with bias and prejudice; of judging so as to do wrong to individuals; of judging so as to injure truth and retard progress and improvement. The text teaches us, on the contrary

I THAT CAUSES, BEFORE BEING JUDGED, ARE TO BE FAIRLY HEARD. How many judgments are passed daily in utter ignorance of the real facts of the case, and without any attempt to ascertain them, perhaps without the means of ascertaining them! Such judgments are ipso facto unjust. It is only by the rarest chance they can be right, and their rightness being accidental does not justify them. Let judgments be reserved for cases in which we have an opportunity of full investigation. Hear both sides, and hear them

(1) fully,

(2) candidly, and

(3) patiently.

II THAT CAUSES, AFTER BEING HEARD, ARE TO HAVE JUDGMENT PASSED UPON THEM WITH STRICT IMPARTIALITY. Judge not according to the appearance," said Jesus, "but judge righteous judgment an instance illustrating that wider view of judging which we are here taking. (Joh_7:24) Equal measure is to be meted out to all. We are to judge impartially as between brother and brother, fellow-citizen and foreigner, rich and poor, applying the same principles and standards to each case, and keeping in view the essential merits as the one thing to be regarded. This is the plain rule of justice, though we all feel how difficult it is to act up to it.

III THAT JUDGMENT UPON CAUSES IS TO BE GIVEN FEARLESSLY. "Ye shall not be afraid of the face of man." (Cf. the Regent Morton"s eulogy on Knox lies he who never feared the face of man.") Even when just judgment is being pronounced internally, the fear of man, or the desire of man"s favor, or the dread of temporal consequences, often leads to a time-serving tampering with conviction, to a saying and doing of the thing we do not at heart approve of. This is the worst kind of cowardice.

IV THAT JUDGMENT UPON CAUSES IS TO BE GIVEN UNDER A DUE SENSE OF RESPONSIBILITY TO GOD. "The judgment is God"s." Judges are his vicegerents, deriving their authority from him, expressing the judgment of his righteousness, anticipating his own final judgment, and themselves responsible to him for the manner in which they exercise their functions. Every biased, untrue, and insincere judgment is a misrepresentation of that truth and rectitude which have their ground in God"s own being.

V THAT IN CAUSES ON WHICH WE ARE INCOMPETENT TO PRONOUNCE, JUDGMENT IS NOT TO BE ATTEMPTED. (Ver. 17.) J.O.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Rashi

Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki (Rashi)

ותענו אתי וגו׳ AND YE ANSWERED ME, etc. — You at once decided the matter to your benefit. You should really have replied: Our teacher, Moses! From whom is it more fitting to learn, from you or from your disciple? Is it not from you who have taken such pains about it? But I knew your thoughts: you said, “Many judges will now be appointed over us; if one of them does not happen to be an acquaintance of ours, we shall bring him a gift and he will show us favour (Sifrei Devarim 14).

לעשות TO DO — If I showed myself remiss, you said: act quickly (Sifrei Devarim 14).

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.

Lesson kit

Teaching starters — assembled from the data on this page, not authored interpretation. Every prompt links to the verse data it draws on. Edit before teaching.

Deuteronomy, in the Pentateuch, opens this verse with 8 words (8 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is ʻânâh (“to answer”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

The word ʻânâh carries the sense “to answer.” How does it shape the verse?
These translations render this verse differently; the difference is in the English rendering, not the original. What questions does that raise?
«וַֽתַּעֲנ֖וּ» is a Qal Sequential Imperfect verb. How does that grammatical form shape the action described?
Compare how John Gill's Exposition and The Pulpit Commentary read this verse. Where do they agree or differ?

Things to notice

This verse counts 8 Hebrew ↔ 11 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 4 words in this verse.
8 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 8 words in this verse.