Deuteronomy 1:30

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

Yahweh your God who goes before you, he will fight for you, according to all that he did for you in Egypt before your eyes,

World English Bible · Public Domain

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יִלָּחֵ֣ם

lâcham

H3898

“to fight”

Verb, Niphal, Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular

Appears 177× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears at Exodus 1:10

Full BDB Definition

Origin: a primitive root

TWOT: 1104 , 1105

to fight, do battle, make war - (Qal) to fight, do battle - (Niphal) to engage in battle, wage war - (Qal) to eat, use as food

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 →

13: words
12: distinct lemmas
Pentateuch: section

Grammatical profile

3 verbs
6 nouns
1 pronoun
2 prepositions
1 particle

Verb forms

הַהֹלֵ֣ךְ Qal · Participle Active
יִלָּחֵ֣ם Niphal · Imperfect
עָשָׂ֧ה Qal · Perfect

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 25 words from the Hebrew and 31 from the Septuagint (LXX English) — closely comparable.

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 13 Hebrew tokens and 23 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.

Cross-references

Topical passages linked to Deuteronomy 1:30 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.

Exodus 14:14 Yahweh will fight for you, and you shall be still."
Nehemiah 4:20 in whatever place you hear the sound of the trumpet, resort you there to us; our God will fight for us.
Romans 8:37 No, in all these things, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
Romans 8:31 What then shall we say about these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?
Deuteronomy 3:22 You shall not fear them; for Yahweh your God, he it is who fights for you.
Joshua 10:42 All these kings and their land did Joshua take at one time, because Yahweh, the God of Israel, fought for Israel.
1 Samuel 17:45–46 Then said David to the Philistine, You come to me with a sword, and with a spear, and with a javelin: but I come to you in the name of Yahweh of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied.
Psalms 46:11 Yahweh of Hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah.

2 Chronicles 14:11–12 Asa cried to Yahweh his God, and said, Yahweh, there is none besides you to help, between the mighty and him who has no strength: help us, Yahweh our God; for we rely on you, and in your name are we come against this multitude. Yahweh, you are our God; don't let man prevail against you.
Isaiah 8:9–10 Make an uproar, O you peoples, and be broken in pieces! And give ear, all you of far countries: gird yourselves, and be broken in pieces! Gird yourselves, and be broken in pieces!
Deuteronomy 20:1–4 When you go forth to battle against your enemies, and see horses, and chariots, [and] a people more than you, you shall not be afraid of them; for Yahweh your God is with you, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.
2 Chronicles 32:8 with him is an arm of flesh; but with us is Yahweh our God to help us, and to fight our battles. The people rested themselves on the words of Hezekiah king of Judah.
Exodus 14:25 He took off their chariot wheels, and they drove them heavily; so that the Egyptians said, "Let's flee from the face of Israel, for Yahweh fights for them against the Egyptians!"

Cross-references courtesy of OpenBible.info (CC BY 4.0).

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 1:30 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

יְהוָ֤ה אֱלֹֽהֵיכֶם֙ הַהֹלֵ֣ךְ לִפְנֵיכֶ֔ם ה֖וּא יִלָּחֵ֣ם לָכֶ֑ם כְּ֠כֹל אֲשֶׁ֨ר עָשָׂ֧ה אִתְּכֶ֛ם בְּמִצְרַ֖יִם לְעֵינֵיכֶֽם

Yahweh your God who goes before you, he will fight for you, according to all that he did for you in Egypt before your eyes,

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX Deuteronomy 1:30 Septuagint · lemma form

κύριος ὁ θεός σύ ὁ προπορεύομαι πρό πρόσωπον σύ αὐτός συν ἐκπολεμέω αὐτός μετά σύ κατά πᾶς ὅσος ποιέω σύ ἐν γῆ αἴγυπτος

the Lord your God who goes before your face, he shall fight against them together with you effectually, according to all that he wrought for you in the land of Egypt;

LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) · Public Domain

On this verse, The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges discusses the Septuagint’s reading. Read the note in Commentary ↓

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)

יְיָ אֱלָהֲכוֹן דִמְדַבַּר קֳדָמֵיכוֹן הוּא יְגִיחַ לְכוֹן כְּכֹל דִי עֲבַד עִמְכוֹן בְּמִצְרַיִם לְעֵינֵיכוֹן

(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)

מֵימְרָא דַיְיָ אֱלָהָכוֹן דִּמְדַבֵּר קֳדָמֵיכוֹן הוּא יַגִּיחַ לְכוֹן כְּכָל מַה דַּעֲבַד לְכוֹן בְּמִצְרַיִם לְמֵיחְמֵיכוֹן

the Word of the Lord your God who goeth before you will Himself fight for you, according to all that He did for you in Mizraim before your eyes.

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 1:30 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 →

Joseph Benson's Commentary

Deu 1:30. Shall fight for you according to all that he did in Egypt — This was one of the strongest arguments possible to beget in them a firm reliance on the protection and help of God; since they could not but own that the same power which had redeemed them out of Egypt, was no less able to bring them into Canaan; yet even this proved to be of no avail.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Tyndale Open Study Notes

Tyndale Open Resources

1:30 He will fight for you: This phrase refers to the defeat of the Canaanite nations. The Lord would initiate the battle, lead it, fight it, and bring it to a successful conclusion. The only other use of this phrase refers to God’s activity in the Exodus (Exod 14:14).

Geneva Bible (1599)

Geneva Bible translators

Declaring that to renounce our own force, and constantly to follow our vocation, and depend on the Lord, is the true boldness, and agreeable to God.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

Adam Clarke's Commentary

Verse 30. The Lord - shall fight for you] In the Targum of Onkelos, it is, the WORD of the Lord shall fight for you. In a great number of places the Targums or Chaldee paraphrases use the term מימרא דיי meimera dayeya or Yehovah, the Word of the Lord, exactly in the same way in which St. John uses the term Λογος Logos in the first chapter of his Gospel. Many instances of this have already occurred.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne

30. who goeth before you] Heb. emphatically, the goer before you is He, found only in D as here or with slight differences, Deu_1:33, Deu_20:4, Deu_31:6; Deu_31:8; J, Exo_13:21, has the same part, without the def. art. adding the pillar of cloud and pillar of fire; E, Exo_14:19, the angel of God going before the camp. It is in such differences of style as well as of figure that the distinction of D consists. See Driver on Exo_13:21; Exo_14:9.

he shall fight for you] Cp. JE, Exo_14:14, and these deuteronomic passages: Exo_14:25 : Deu_3:22; Jos_10:14 b, Jos_10:42, Deu_23:3; Deu_23:10.

before your eyes] LXX omit. Cp. Deu_4:6; Deu_4:34, Deu_6:22, Deu_9:17, Deu_25:3; Deu_25:9, Deu_28:31, Deu_29:1, Deu_31:7, Deu_34:12; Jos_10:12; Jos_24:17. Here Moses insists that the people must prefer their experience of God to the reports of the spies about a situation not yet reached. See Deu_1:27.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary

For you. Septuagint, "he will defeat them along with you." For man must do something. (St. Augustine, q. 1.)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

Matthew Poole's English Annotations

Where you were weak, dispirited, divided, raw, and unexperienced, and in a great measure unarmed, and able to do nothing against your numerous, potent, united enemies, but to stand still and see the salvation of God. And therefore now your distrust is highly unreasonable, when you have been hardened and fitted for military service by your travels, disciplined and experienced in some degree as to martial affairs, encouraged by frequent and glorious miracles for forty years together, and you are going into a country divided into several nations and kingdoms.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Rashi

Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki (Rashi)

ילחם לכם means, [HE WILL FIGHT] ON YOUR BEHALF.

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 13 words (12 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is lâcham (“to fight”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

How does “to fight” (lâcham) shape what this verse is saying?
How does Exodus 14:14, which shares this passage’s theme, read alongside this verse?
The translations on this page render this verse differently — a whole-verse word diff, not a word-by-word alignment. What might account for the different wordings?
«הַהֹלֵ֣ךְ» is a Qal Participle Active verb. How does that grammatical form shape the action described?
Compare how Joseph Benson's Commentary and Tyndale Open Study Notes read this verse. Where do they agree or differ?

Things to notice

This verse counts 13 Hebrew ↔ 23 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 14 words in this verse.
12 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 13 words in this verse.