Deuteronomy 19:18

Summary

The verse describes the judicial process following an accusation: the judges are to investigate the matter thoroughly, and the text presents the discovery that the accuser is in fact a false witness who has testified falsely against a fellow Israelite.

Key words

• da.re.Shu ("they will investigate", H1875) — qal sequential perfect, continuing the narrative chain begun in the preceding verse; marks this as the next required action in the legal procedure.
• hei.Tev ("thoroughly", H3190) — hiphil infinitive absolute, added after the finite verb to intensify it; Hebrew uses this doubling of root-form to stress the manner of the action rather than adding a separate adverb.
• hi.Neh ("there!", H2009) — interjection that shifts from procedural instruction to a vivid presentation of a discovered fact, as if pointing at the situation.
• 'ed ("witness", H5707) — appears twice, first in construct with sheker ("falsehood", H8267) forming "witness of falsehood," then again with the article as "the witness," now separated from sheker.
• 'a.Nah ("he has testified", H6030B) — qal perfect, the main verb of the resumed clause, stating the completed act of testifying against the 'a.Chi ("countryman/brother", H0251I) with pronominal suffix "his."

What the text says

The clause opens with a sequential perfect, da.re.Shu, linking directly to the preceding verse's instructions and continuing the narrative sequence about legal procedure. This verb is reinforced by the infinitive absolute hei.Tev, a common Hebrew device where the same verbal root appears twice — once as the finite verb, once as an infinitive — to intensify the action; here it stresses that the investigation must be thorough.

After ve.hi.Neh ("and behold"), the Hebrew presents the discovered situation through a construction that names the same noun twice: first 'ed-sheker ("witness of falsehood") as a construct chain functioning almost as a topic being introduced, then ha-'Ed ("the witness") resumed as the subject of the verb 'a.Nah ("he testified"), with sheker now standing alone as an adverbial accusative ("falsely"). This repetition — witness/falsehood stated once in construct form, then restated with the witness as grammatical subject and falsehood as the manner of his testimony — is a feature of Hebrew syntax (a topicalized element resumed by a pronoun-like subject) that gives rhetorical weight to the accusation but is not reproduced formally in translation.

Differences between versions

The LXX splits the final action into two verbs: ἐμαρτύρησεν ἄδικα ("he testified unjust things") and ἀντέστη κατὰ τοῦ ἀδελφοῦ ("he rose against his brother"), where the Hebrew has a single verb, 'a.Nah, governing the phrase "against his brother." The Vulgate renders the clause as an indirect statement, "invenerint falsum testem dixisse... mendacium" ("they shall have found the false witness to have spoken... a lie"), embedding the discovery explicitly as the object of finding, whereas the Hebrew presents it more directly through the hinneh construction without a verb of "finding."