Deuteronomy 13:9

Summary

The verse instructs that the person in question must certainly be killed, with the hand of the addressee acting first to put him to death, and the hand of all the people acting afterward.

Key words

• ha.Rog ("certainly ", H2026) — qal absolute infinitive placed before the finite verb to intensify the certainty of the action.
• ta.har.Ge.nu ("you will kill him", H2026 + H9033) — qal imperfect, second person masculine singular, with pronominal suffix "him" attached, forming the intensified construction with the preceding infinitive.
• ya.de.Kha ("your hand", H3027H + H9021) — construct noun "hand of" with possessive suffix "your," the subject of the following clause.
• ri.sho.Nah ("first", H7223G) — feminine singular ordinal, agreeing with the feminine noun yad ("hand"), marking sequence.
• 'a.cha.ro.Nah ("last", H0314) — feminine singular adjective, again agreeing with yad, marking the second phase of the action in contrast to ri.sho.Nah.

What the text says

The clause opens with ki ("for/if", H3588A), a subordinating particle that introduces the condition or circumstance under which the following action applies. The verb construction ha.Rog tah.ar.Ge.nu pairs the absolute infinitive ha.Rog with the finite imperfect ta.har.Ge.nu — a common Biblical Hebrew pattern where the infinitive absolute before a finite verb of the same root intensifies or confirms the action, rendered in translations as "you must surely kill" or "you will surely kill him." The pronominal suffix -nu ("him," H9033) attached to the verb identifies the direct object.

The next clause, ya.de.Kha tih.yeh-bo va.ri.sho.Nah la.ha.mi.To, structures the action in two temporal stages using the feminine noun yad ("hand," H3027H) as subject in both halves. In the first half, ya.de.Kha ("your hand") is the subject of tih.yeh ("it will be," H1961), followed by bo ("on him," preposition + suffix) and the temporal marker va.ri.sho.Nah ("at the first," H7223G), specifying that the addressee's hand acts first. The purpose is stated with the hiphil infinitive la.ha.mi.To ("to put him to death," H4191), a causative form indicating the intended outcome of the hand's action.

The second half, introduced by ve- ("and," H9002), shifts the subject to yad kol-ha-'Am ("the hand of all the people," H3027H + H3605 + H5971A), a construct chain meaning "hand of all of the people." This second hand acts ba-'a.cha.ro.Nah ("at the last," H0314), the ordinal-adjective pair ri.sho.Nah/'a.cha.ro.Nah explicitly sequencing the two hands: the individual's hand first, the collective hand afterward.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the Hebrew singular ya.de.Kha ("your hand") with the plural αἱ χεῖρές σου ("your hands"), and likewise pluralizes yad kol-ha-'Am into αἱ χεῖρες παντὸς τοῦ λαοῦ ("the hands of all the people"), where the Hebrew consistently uses the singular construct noun yad. The Vulgate similarly shifts to a jussive/subjunctive tone ("sit primum manus tua... omnis populus mittat manum") rather than the Hebrew's imperfect tih.yeh ("it will be"), and adds the verb "mittat" ("let it send/put") not present as a separate lexical item in the Hebrew clause describing the people's hand.