Deuteronomy 18:21

Summary

The verse presents a hypothetical objection: someone might say internally, questioning how one could recognize whether a particular word or message had not been spoken by Yehovah (H3068). It is framed as a rhetorical question anticipating the criterion given afterward in the passage.

Key words

• to.Mar ("you will say", H0559) — qal imperfect, 2nd person masculine singular, expressing a future or hypothetical act of speaking, introduced by the conditional Khi ("if", H3588A).
• bi-l.va.Ve.-kha ("in your heart", H9003 + H3824 + H9021) — preposition + construct noun + suffix, forming the idiom "in your heart," referring to internal thought rather than spoken word.
• 'ei.Khah ("how?", H0349B) — interrogative particle opening the rhetorical question embedded in the direct speech.
• ne.Da' ("will we know", H3045) — qal imperfect, 1st person plural, shifting from the singular "you" of to.Mar to a communal "we" inside the quoted question.
• di.be.R-o ("he has spoken it", H1696G + H9033) — piel perfect, 3rd person masculine singular with object suffix; the piel stem intensifies the act of speaking, and the perfect aspect marks it as a completed, prior act, negated by lo' ("not", H3808).

What the text says

The verse opens with the conjunction ve ("and", H9002) attached to the conditional particle Khi ("if", H3588A), constructing a conditional clause: "and if you say in your heart." The verb to.Mar ("you will say", H0559) is singular, addressing one person, but the quoted speech that follows shifts to the plural verb ne.Da' ("will we know", H3045), suggesting the individual's internal question represents a collective uncertainty — "how will we know."

The core of the question concerns ha-da.Var ("the word", H1697G with H9009), qualified by the relative clause 'a.Sher lo'-di.be.R-o Yehovah ("which Yehovah has not spoken it", H0834A + H3808 + H1696G + H9033 + H3068G). The verb di.be.R is in the piel stem, which in Hebrew grammar often marks intensive or factitive action, here rendered as the standard verb "to speak" but carrying the sense of a completed pronouncement. Its perfect aspect indicates the action is viewed as accomplished, and the negation lo' ("not", H3808) governs this completed action, producing the meaning "has not spoken" rather than "does not speak" or "will not speak." The object suffix -o ("it/his", H9033) attaches the pronoun directly to the verb, a construction common in Biblical Hebrew that Spanish and English translations render as a separate pronoun.

Differences between versions

The Vulgate (VULCLEM) renders the question as "Quomodo possum intelligere verbum" ("How can I understand the word"), using a singular first-person verb ("I"), where the Hebrew ne.Da' ("we will know", H3045) is plural ("we"). The Vulgate also uses "intelligere" ("to understand") rather than a verb of "knowing" or "recognizing," which shifts the semantic focus slightly from cognitive recognition (as in yada', H3045) to comprehension. BSB and RV1909/SBLIBRE follow the Hebrew's plural "we" more closely with "recognize" or "conoceremos" ("we will know").