Deuteronomy 17:15

Summary

Deuteronomy 17:15 instructs that the king appointed over the people must be one whom Yehovah chooses, and specifically someone from among the Israelites' own countrymen — not a foreigner. The verse repeats the verb "to appoint" twice and uses emphatic construction to reinforce that the choice is not left to human discretion alone but constrained by divine selection and national origin.

Key words

• Som ("indeed ", H7760L) — infinitive form preceding the finite verb, creating an emphatic construction ("you shall surely appoint") common in Biblical Hebrew for stressing certainty of the action.
• ta.Sim ("you will appoint", H7760L) — imperfect 2nd masculine singular, paired with the infinitive Som to intensify the command; it appears twice in the verse (positions 2 and 17), first regarding the general appointment, then repeated regarding appointing "from among your countrymen."
• yiv.Char ("he will choose", H0977) — imperfect 3rd masculine singular, with Yehovah as subject, indicating an ongoing or future divine action that determines who qualifies as king.
• mi.Ke.rev ("from midst of", H9006 + H7130G) — preposition plus construct noun, specifying the required origin of the king: from the internal group of "your countrymen" ('a.Chei.kha, H0251I), not from outside it.
• na.khe.Ri ("foreign", H5237) — adjective describing 'ish ("a man", H0376G), explicitly excluded as a candidate, paired with the negated construct "who is not your countryman" (lo' 'a.Chi.kha).

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence opens with the emphatic infinitive-plus-imperfect pair Som ta.Sim ("indeed you will appoint"), a construction that grammatically underscores certainty or obligation rather than mere possibility. The object of this appointing is Me.lekh ("a king", H4428G), qualified by a relative clause: "whom Yehovah your God will choose" ('a.Sher yiv.Char Yehovah 'e.lo.Hei.kha bo). The preposition-plus-suffix bo ("in him", H9033) closes this clause, referring back to the king as the object of Yehovah's choice.

The verse then repeats the same appointing verb ta.Sim ("you will appoint") in a second clause, now specifying the source: mi.Ke.rev 'a.Chei.kha ("from the midst of your countrymen"). This repetition creates a parallel structure — first stating that the king must be Yehovah's choice, then that he must come from within the community of "countrymen" ('a.Chei.kha, H0251I, construct plural with 2ms suffix).

The final clause uses lo' tu.Khal ("you will not be able", H3808 + H3201) followed by the infinitive Tet ("to set", H5414H), explicitly barring the appointment of 'ish na.khe.Ri ("a foreign man"). This is reinforced by a second negated relative clause: 'a.Sher lo' 'a.Chi.kha hu' ("who is not your countryman, he"), where the independent pronoun hu' ("he", H1931) adds emphasis to the identity being denied.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders Me.lekh ("king") as ἄρχοντα ("ruler/leader") rather than a direct equivalent of "king," and it duplicates the relative pronoun (ὃν ὃν) in its Greek text as reflected in the Swete edition. The Vulgate condenses the two Hebrew occurrences of ta.Sim ("you will appoint") into a single Latin clause structure ("eum constitues... de numero fratrum tuorum"), merging what the Hebrew presents as two parallel statements into one continuous sentence.