Deuteronomy 15:11

Summary

The verse states that the needy will never cease to exist within the land, and on that basis Yehovah instructs the addressee to open his hand generously to his fellow countryman, the poor, and the needy within his land.

Key words

• yech.Dal ("he will cease", H2308) — qal imperfect, expressing an ongoing/future negated action: the needy will not stop existing.
• 'ev.Yon ("[the] needy", H0034) — masculine singular adjective functioning as a noun, describing the class of person the verse addresses.
• me.tza.ve. ("[am] commanding", H6680) — piel participle, showing an intensive, present, ongoing act of commanding by the speaker ('a.no.Khi, "I", H0595).
• Pa.to.ach ("certainly ", H6605A) — qal absolute infinitive paired with the imperfect tif.Tach ("you will open", H6605A) to intensify the verb, a construction often rendered in English as "you shall surely open" or "open wide."
• 'a.Chi. ("countryman", H0251I) — construct noun with 2nd person suffix, naming the first recipient category of the command, followed by 'a.ni.Ye. ("poor [person]", H6041) and 'ev.yo.ne. ("needy [person]", H0034) in the same construct pattern.

What the text says

The verse opens with the conditional/causal particle ki ("for", H3588A) followed by the negated verb yech.Dal ("he will cease", H2308), producing the statement "the needy will not cease from the midst of the land" (mi.Kerev + ha.'A.retz, H7130G + H0776G). This establishes a stated fact about ongoing presence of the needy, using the imperfect aspect to mark it as continuous rather than a single event.

The phrase 'al-Ken ("therefore", H5921A + H3651C) links this fact directly to the command that follows, marking a cause-and-effect relationship in the Hebrew syntax. The speaker identifies himself explicitly with the independent pronoun 'a.no.Khi ("I", H0595) combined with the piel participle me.tza.ve. ("[am] commanding", H6680), which grammatically emphasizes the ongoing, deliberate nature of the command being issued, rather than a completed or single instruction.

The core instruction uses the infinitive absolute + imperfect construction Pa.to.ach tif.Tach ("certainly you will open", H6605A), a common Biblical Hebrew intensifying pattern that has no single-word equivalent in English; translations render it variously as "surely open" or "open wide." The recipients are listed in three parallel construct phrases—'a.Chi. ("countryman/brother", H0251I), 'a.ni.Ye. ("poor", H6041), and 'ev.yo.ne. ("needy", H0034)—each bearing the second-person suffix kha ("your"), tying the obligation to specific relational categories "within your land" (be.'ar.Tze.kha, H0776G).

Differences between versions

The LXX renders 'ev.Yon ("needy", H0034) as ἐνδεής ("needy/lacking") and translates the infinitive absolute construction Pa.to.ach tif.Tach with a participle plus future verb (Ἀνοίγων ἀνοίξεις), preserving the intensifying doubling pattern differently than the Hebrew's infinitive absolute. The Vulgate condenses the three-part list of recipients ('a.Chi., 'a.ni.Ye., 'ev.yo.ne.) into "fratri tuo egeno et pauperi, qui tecum versatur," slightly reorganizing the parallel structure found in the Hebrew.