Deuteronomy 10:16
וּמַלְתֶּם אֵת עָרְלַת לְבַבְכֶם וְעָרְפְּכֶם לֹא תַקְשׁוּ עֽוֹד׃
✦ Hebrew interlinear
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✦ The same verse in five languages
וּמַלְתֶּ֕ם אֵ֖ת עָרְלַ֣ת לְבַבְכֶ֑ם וְעָ֨רְפְּכֶ֔ם לֹ֥א תַקְשׁ֖וּ עֽוֹד׃
καὶ περιτεμεῖσθε τὴν σκληροκαρδίαν ὑμῶν, καὶ τὸν τράχηλον ὑμῶν οὐ σκληρυνεῖτε·
Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0
Latin (Vulgate)
Circumcidite igitur præputium cordis vestri, et cervicem vestram ne induretis amplius:
Circunciden, pues, el prepucio de su corazón, y no sean más rígidos de cuello.
Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)
Circuncidad pues el prepucio de vuestro corazón, y no endurezcáis más vuestra cerviz.
Circumcise your hearts, therefore, and stiffen your necks no more.
✦ What the text says
Summary
Deuteronomy 10:16 commands the audience to circumcise "the foreskin of your heart" and to no longer stiffen "your neck." The verse uses two body-part metaphors — foreskin and neck — to describe an internal disposition and outward resistance, both addressed as actions the people must perform themselves.
Key words
- mal.Tem ("you will circumcise", H4135A) — qal sequential perfect, second person masculine plural; continues the narrative sequence as a command directed at the whole group.
- 'a.re.Lat ("[the] foreskin of", H6190H) — feminine singular construct, grammatically binding this noun to the next word, levav ("heart").
- le.vav.Khem ("your heart", H3824 + H9026) — masculine singular noun in construct with a second person masculine plural suffix, forming the phrase "foreskin of your heart."
- 'A.re.pe.Khem ("your neck", H6203 + H9026) — masculine singular construct noun with the same plural suffix, paralleling the heart phrase in structure.
- tak.Shu ("you will make stiff", H7185) — hiphil (causative) imperfect, second person masculine plural, expressing an action to be avoided going forward, reinforced by od ("again", H5750).
What the text says
The verse is built on two parallel construct chains: 'a.re.Lat le.vav.Khem ("foreskin of your heart") and, after the conjunction ve, 'A.re.pe.Khem ("your neck") paired with the negated verb tak.Shu ("you will make stiff"). Both phrases place a body part in construct with a possessive suffix referring to the audience, creating a structural parallel between "heart" and "neck" as the two objects of address. The first clause uses the qal sequential perfect mal.Tem ("you will circumcise"), continuing a chain of prior commands in the passage, while the second clause switches to a negated hiphil imperfect tak.Shu, marking a shift from a completed-sequence action to an ongoing prohibition. The word od ("again", H5750) attached to the negation specifies that the stiffening described is not to continue further, implying it has occurred before.
The direct object marker 'et (H0853) preceding "foreskin of your heart" signals that this phrase is the grammatical object of mal.Tem, a marker with no independent gloss in translation. The construct chains themselves cannot show possession without the suffixes -khem, which attach the body parts explicitly to the addressed group throughout.
Differences between versions
The LXX renders 'a.re.Lat le.vav.Khem ("foreskin of your heart") with the single compound term sklerokardian ("hard-heartedness"), collapsing the two-word Hebrew construct phrase into one Greek noun rather than preserving "foreskin" as a separate image. The Vulgate and Hebrew both retain the literal "foreskin of the heart" (praeputium cordis), while modern translations like BSB and RV1909 simplify further to "circumcise your hearts," omitting the word "foreskin" that appears in the Hebrew and Vulgate text.
This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.