Deuteronomy 19:10

Summary

The verse states that innocent blood must not be shed within the land that Yehovah is giving as an inheritance, and that if it is, bloodguilt will rest upon the person or community responsible. The sentence links the prohibition against shedding innocent blood directly to the land given by Yehovah and to a resulting state of guilt.

Key words

• yishafekh ("it will be shed", H8210H) — niphal imperfect, passive form describing blood being poured out; the imperfect aspect marks this as an ongoing or future possibility rather than a single completed event.
• dam naqi ("innocent blood", H1818 + H5355A) — noun plus adjective, both masculine singular, identifying the specific category of blood whose shedding is addressed.
• be-qerev artzekha ("in the midst of your land", H7130G + H0776G) — construct chain meaning "midst of," qualified by "your land," locating the prohibition within a defined territory.
• noten ("is about to give", H5414G) — qal participle, expressing an action presented as currently unfolding or imminent, describing Yehovah's giving of the land as an ongoing act rather than a completed past event.
• ve-hayah ... damim ("and it will be ... blood[s]", H1961 + H1818) — sequential perfect verb continuing the narrative logic, followed by the plural form damim, shifting from singular "blood" earlier in the verse to a plural noun in this closing clause.

What the text says

The verse is built as two linked clauses joined by the conjunction ve ("and", H9001/H9002). The first clause negates the shedding of dam naqi ("innocent blood") using the niphal imperfect yishafekh, a passive construction that describes the blood being poured out without naming an agent. This clause is anchored spatially by be-qerev artzekha ("in the midst of your land"), followed by a relative clause introduced by asher ("which", H0834A) that identifies the land as the one Yehovah eloheykha noten lekha nachalah — "Yehovah your God is giving you as an inheritance." The participle noten presents this giving as an ongoing or imminent action tied to the moment of the land's transfer to the addressee.

The second clause, introduced by the sequential ve-hayah ("and it will be"), shifts grammatically from the passive description of bloodshed to a stative outcome: "and it will be upon you, damim." Here damim appears in the plural, a shift from the singular dam used earlier in the verse. The construction "hayah al" ("it will be upon") functions idiomatically to indicate that responsibility or consequence attaches to the addressee, expressed without a separate verb of possession—there is no lexical component meaning "guilty" or "reus" in the Hebrew itself.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew closes with ve-hayah alekha damim ("and it will be upon you, blood[s]"), a construction without an explicit term for guilt. The Vulgate renders this as "ne sis sanguinis reus" ("lest you be guilty of blood"), introducing the explicit term reus ("guilty") not present as a separate lexeme in the Hebrew. The LXX similarly renders the clause as "οὐκ ἔσται ἐν σοὶ αἵματι ἔνοχος" ("there will not be in you one liable/guilty of blood"), again supplying the term ἔνοχος ("liable/guilty") to make explicit what the Hebrew idiom "it will be upon you, blood(s)" leaves implicit. The BSB and SBLIBRE similarly interpret this idiom with explicit vocabulary of guilt or bloodshed-responsibility.