Deuteronomy 20:3

Summary

The verse records instructions to be spoken to the people before battle: they are addressed as "Israel," told that the day of engagement with their enemies has arrived, and given four commands against fear, faintness, haste, and terror in the face of the enemy.

Key words

• shema ("hear", H8085G) — qal imperative, singular masculine, calling the collective "Israel" to attention as one body.
• qerevim ("approaching/near", H7131) — plural masculine adjective describing "you" (the people) as being close to the battle "this day" (ha-Yom, H3117G).
• yerakh ("be timid", H7401) — qal jussive, third person, governing the noun levav ("heart", H3824) in construct with "your" — a wish/command about the heart's state, not addressed directly to "you" grammatically.
• tir'u ("you be afraid", H3372G) — qal jussive, second person plural, shifting the address directly to the people themselves.
• ta'artzu ("you be terrified", H6206) — qal jussive, second person plural, the third in a series of parallel prohibitions using 'al ("may not", H0408).

What the text says

The verse opens with a narrative sequential form, 'amar ("he will say", H0559), continuing a chain of reported speech from the preceding context. The direct address begins with the imperative shema ("hear") plus the vocative Yisra'el ("Israel", H3478), a construction that treats the nation as a single addressee even though the following verbs shift to plural forms ('atem, "you", H0859D, plural).

The clause 'atem qerevim ha-yom la-milchamah uses the adjective qerevim rather than a finite verb, describing a present state — "you are near/approaching" — rather than a future action. This is followed by four jussive clauses, each introduced by the negative particle 'al ("may not", H0408), which in Biblical Hebrew marks prohibition or exhortation distinct from the absolute negative lo. The first jussive, yerakh ("be timid", H7401), has as its grammatical subject levavkhem ("your heart", H3824 + suffix) — the heart itself is the one commanded not to soften, not the people directly. The remaining three jussives — tira'u (H3372G), tachpezu (H2648), ta'artzu (H6206) — take the people themselves ("you all") as subject, forming a rhetorical escalation: fear, haste, and terror are each separately prohibited. The final phrase, mi-penei-hem ("from their face/presence", H6440L construct + suffix H9028), specifies the enemies as the source of the potential fear.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders qerevim ("approaching") with a verb of motion, πορεύεσεσθε ("you will go"), shifting the adjectival "state of nearness" in the Hebrew into a future verbal action. The Vulgate similarly uses "pugnam committitis" ("you engage in battle"), a finite verbal construction, where the Hebrew has no verb in that clause. The LXX also translates ta'artzu ("be terrified") with ἐκκλίνετε ("turn aside/deviate"), a sense of turning away rather than terror, while the Vulgate's "cedere" ("to yield/retreat") likewise shifts toward the idea of retreating rather than the Hebrew's emotional terror.