Deuteronomy 32:45

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

Moses made an end of speaking all these words to all Israel;

World English Bible · Public Domain

Highlights

Septuagint runs shorter here — compare

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Word by word

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וַיְכַ֣ל

kâlâh

H3615

“and · to finish”

Conjunction + Verb, Piel, Sequential Imperfect, 3rd Person, Masculine, Singular

Appears 205× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears at Genesis 2:1

Full BDB Definition

Origin: a primitive root

TWOT: 982 , 983 , 984

to accomplish, cease, consume, determine, end, fail, finish, be complete, be accomplished, be ended, be at an end, be finished, be spent - (Qal) - to be complete, be at an end - to be completed, be finished - to be accomplished, be fulfilled - to be determined, be plotted (bad sense) - to be spent, be used up - to waste away, be exhausted, fail - to come to an end, vanish, perish, be destroyed - (Piel) - to complete, bring to an end, finish - to complete (a period of time) - to finish (doing a thing) - to make an end, end - to accomplish, fulfil, bring to pass - to accomplish, determine (in thought) - to put an end to, cause to cease - to cause to fail, exhaust, use up, spend - to destroy, exterminate - (Pual) to be finished, be ended, be completed

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 →

10: words
9: distinct lemmas
Pentateuch: section

Grammatical profile

2 verbs
5 nouns
1 pronoun
1 preposition
1 particle

Verb forms

וַיְכַ֣ל Piel · Sequential Imperfect
לְדַבֵּ֛ר Piel · Infinitive Construct

Repetition

A word recurs within this verse — often emphatic in Hebrew:

כָּל all H3605 ×2

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 12 words from the Hebrew and 7 from the Septuagint (LXX English) — the Septuagint runs noticeably shorter here. See the side-by-side →

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 10 Hebrew tokens and 6 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.

Here the Septuagint runs noticeably shorter than the Hebrew — LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) 7 words vs World English Bible 12. A rough length comparison of the two English translations, not a word-level alignment — read both below.

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

Hebrew Deuteronomy 32:45 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

וַיְכַ֣ל מֹשֶׁ֗ה לְדַבֵּ֛ר אֶת כָּל הַדְּבָרִ֥ים הָאֵ֖לֶּה אֶל כָּל יִשְׂרָאֵֽל

Moses made an end of speaking all these words to all Israel;

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX Deuteronomy 32:45 Septuagint · lemma form

καί συντελέω μωυσῆς λαλέω πᾶς ἰσραήλ

And Moses finished speaking to all Israel.

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)

וְשֵׁצִי מֹשֶׁה לְמַלָלָא יָת כָּל פִּתְגָמַיָא הָאִלֵין עִם כָּל יִשְׂרָאֵל

(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)

וּפְסַק משֶׁה מִן לְמַלָלָא יַת כָּל דְבִירַיָא הָאִלֵין עִם כָּל יִשְרָאֵל

And Mosheh made an end of speaking all these words with all Israel,

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 32:45 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 →

Trapp's Complete Commentary

John Trapp

Deu 32:45 And Moses made an end of speaking all these words to all Israel:

Ver. 45. And Moses made an end.] He did, and yet he did not, for he had yet still something more to say to them out of his great desire to speak home to their hearts. So the apostle, in 2Co 13:11, and elsewhere, comes in with his το λοιπον, Finally, or, Yet one word more ere we part.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne

45. made an end, etc.] Deu_20:9, Deu_26:12, Deu_31:24. Whether all these words originally referred only to the Code, or are meant by the editor to cover the hortatory addresses added to it, cannot be determined. All Israel, D’s formula.

45–47. A Postscript

Moses again exhorts all Israel to attend to the Law and enforce it on their children, for it is their life, by which they shall prolong their days in the Land. Both the ideas and the language are deuteronomic, and the passage belongs to one of the hortatory supplements to the Law. Most connect it with Deu_31:24-27.

Berth.’s proposal to read Shirah, Song, for Torah, Law, in Deu_32:46 (see on Deu_31:24) and to refer all the vv. to the Song, is contradicted by the phraseology, which is elsewhere consistently used of the Law.

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.

John Gill's Exposition

For it is not a vain thing for you,.... That is, the law is not, and the observance of it in them and their children; it was no light and trifling matter, but of great importance and consequence, obedience to it being attended with rewards, and disobedience with punishment:

because it is your life: if obeyed, the means of a comfortable and happy life, in the enjoyment of all good things, of the preservation and continuance of it to a length of time; and long life was always reckoned a great temporal mercy:

and through this thing ye shall prolong your days in the land whither you go over Jordan to possess it; that is, through their obedience to the law they should live long in the land of Canaan, which they were just going to possess; which explains what is meant by its being their life; their comfortable living and continuance in the land depended on their obedience to the law; see Isa 1:19.

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

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 10 words (9 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is kâlâh (“to finish”). The Greek Septuagint runs shorter here. A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

What does “to finish” (kâlâh) contribute to the verse as a whole?
What does the repetition of “all” (2× in this one verse) do in this verse?
The Septuagint runs shorter here than the Hebrew. What might account for the difference?
These translations render this verse differently. What is at stake in choosing one wording over another?
«וַיְכַ֣ל» is a Piel Sequential Imperfect verb. How does that grammatical form shape the action described?
Compare how Trapp's Complete Commentary and The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges read this verse. Where do they agree or differ?

Things to notice

This verse counts 10 Hebrew ↔ 6 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 3 words in this verse.
“all” occurs 2× in this single verse.
9 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 10 words in this verse.