Deuteronomy 13:15

Summary

The verse commands the destruction of a city's inhabitants "to the mouth of the sword," followed by the total destruction (charam) of the city itself, everything in it, and its livestock, also "to the mouth of the sword." The Hebrew repeats the sword-formula twice, framing both the killing of people and the killing of animals identically.

Key words

• haKeh ("certainly ", H5221) — infinitive absolute of the same root as the following verb, used to intensify the finite verb that follows.
• taKeh ("you will strike", H5221) — hiphil imperfect, second person masculine; paired with the infinitive absolute above to form an emphatic construction, "you shall surely strike."
• lefi-Cherev ("to the mouth of the sword", H6310H + H2719) — an idiom built from a construct noun ("mouth of") plus "sword," appearing twice in the verse, once for the inhabitants and once for the livestock.
• hacharem ("totally destroy", H2763A) — hiphil infinitive absolute, standing alone without a paired finite verb in this clause, carrying imperative-like force for the destruction of the city.
• behemtah ("its livestock", H0929 + H9024) — construct noun with third feminine singular suffix ("her"), referring back to the city ('ir, H5892B, grammatically feminine).

What the text says

The verse opens with the intensifying construction haKeh taKeh — infinitive absolute followed by the finite imperfect of the same root (H5221) — a common Hebrew pattern that emphasizes certainty or forcefulness of the action, often rendered in English as "you shall surely strike." This applies to yoshevei ha'ir hahi' ("the inhabitants of that city," H3427), a plural participle in construct form, meaning literally "the ones dwelling of the city." The phrase lefi-cherev ("to the mouth of the sword") describes the manner of striking.

A second infinitive absolute, hacharem (H2763A), governs the destruction of the city itself ('otah, "it," referring to the feminine noun 'ir), everything within it (kol 'asher bah, "all that is in it"), and its livestock (behemtah). The pronominal suffixes throughout (-ah, "her/its") consistently point back to the feminine noun "city." Notably, the sword-formula lefi-cherev is repeated at the end of the verse specifically for the livestock, creating a structural parallel between the destruction of people and the destruction of animals, both executed "to the mouth of the sword."

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the doubled Hebrew construction with a similar Greek device, ἀναιρῶν ἀνελεῖς (participle + future, "destroying you shall destroy") and ἀναθέματι ἀναθεματιεῖτε (dative + future) for hacharem, preserving the emphatic doubling. However, the LXX text given here does not repeat a separate "sword" phrase for the livestock, instead summarizing with πάντα τὰ ἐν αὐτῇ ("all that is in it"), where the Hebrew explicitly repeats lefi-cherev for the animals. The Vulgate adds statim ("immediately"), a temporal nuance not present in the Hebrew infinitive absolute construction, and similarly compresses the ending into usque ad pecora ("even to the livestock") rather than repeating the sword-formula.