Deuteronomy 13:5

Summary

The verse pronounces the death sentence on the prophet or dream-diviner introduced in the previous verses, giving the reason: he has spoken sarah ("rebellion", H5627) against Yehovah, who brought Israel out of Egypt and redeemed them from slavery. The verse ends with the command to remove "the evil" from the community's midst.

Key words

• na.Vi' ("prophet", H5030) — masculine singular noun, the subject of the sentence, marked definite by the preceding article ha (H9009) and further specified by the demonstrative Hu' ("that", H1931).
• yu.Mat ("he will be put to death", H4191) — hophal (causative-passive) imperfect: the grammatical form indicates the subject undergoes the action of being caused to die, rather than acting himself.
• Sa.rah ("rebellion", H5627) — feminine singular noun functioning as the direct object of di.ber- ("he has spoken", H1696G, piel perfect), forming the idiom "to speak rebellion."
• mo.Tzi' ("the one bringing out", H3318H) — hiphil participle in construct form, describing Yehovah's ongoing identity as "the one who brought out," parallel to po.de. ("the one redeeming", H6299).
• ha.di.cha. ("to thrust aside", H5080) — hiphil infinitive, expressing the purpose or result of the prophet's speech: causing the people to be diverted from the commanded way.

What the text says

The sentence opens by restating the subject with the demonstrative construction ha-navi ha-hu ("that prophet") and ha-cholem ha-chalom ha-hu ("that dreamer of that dream"), both marked definite and specified with hu' ("that", H1931), pointing back to the figure described earlier in the chapter. The predicate yumat (H4191) is hophal, a passive-causative form: the text does not say who executes the sentence, only that the action of death is caused to happen to the subject.

The causal clause introduced by ki ("for/because", H3588A) explains the charge: dibber sarah al-Yehovah eloheikhem — "he has spoken rebellion against Yehovah your God." The verb dibber is piel perfect, a completed action. Yehovah is then described through two participial constructs, ha-motzi ("the one bringing out") and ha-podekha ("the one redeeming you"), both governing prepositional phrases ("from the land of Egypt," "from a house of slaves"). These participles are followed by the infinitive le-hadichakha ("to thrust you aside," H5080), which expresses the aim or effect attributed to the prophet's speech — turning the people from ha-derekh ("the way", H1870G) that Yehovah commanded them to walk (lalekhet bah, infinitive with pronominal suffix).

The final clause shifts to second-person sequential perfect, vi'arta ("you will remove", H1197I), instructing the removal of ha-ra' ("the evil", H7451B) from qirbekha ("your midst", H7130G).

Differences between versions

The Hebrew states that the prophet "spoke rebellion (sarah) against Yehovah your God, who brought you out... to thrust you aside from the way." The LXX instead reads "ἐλάλησεν... πλανῆσαί σε ἀπὸ κυρίου τοῦ θεοῦ σου" — "he spoke to deceive/lead you astray from the Lord your God" — recasting the object of "rebellion" into an infinitive of purpose ("to deceive/lead astray") attached directly to "from the Lord your God," rather than preserving sarah as a distinct noun meaning "rebellion." The Vulgate similarly renders "locutus est ut vos averteret a Domino Deo vestro" ("he has spoken in order to turn you away from the Lord your God"), also converting the noun "rebellion against Yehovah" into a purpose clause of turning away, structurally closer to the LXX than to the Hebrew's direct noun-object construction.