Deuteronomy 19:20

Summary

Deuteronomy 19:20 states the intended effect of punishing a false witness (described in the preceding verses): those who remain — the rest of the community — will hear of it, will fear, and will not again commit an act like this evil deed among the addressee.

Key words

• nish'arim ("remainder", H7604) — niphal participle, masculine plural, functioning as a substantive: "the ones who are left/remain," the subject of the sentence.
• yishme'u ("they will hear", H8085) — qal imperfect, marking the first in a chain of three sequential actions (hear → fear → not repeat).
• yira'u ("they may fear", H3372) — qal imperfect joined by ve- to the previous verb, continuing the sequence rather than introducing a separate clause.
• yosifu ("they will repeat", H3254) — hiphil (causative) imperfect of the root meaning "to add," here combined with the infinitive la'asot ("to do", H6213) to form the idiom "add to do" = "do again."
• be-qirbecha ("in your midst", H7130 + H9021) — construct noun with second-person masculine singular suffix, locating the evil act specifically "within you" (singular addressee).

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built as a chain of three finite verbs sharing the same subject, ha-nish'arim ("the ones remaining"): yishme'u ("they will hear"), ve-yira'u ("and they will fear"), ve-lo yosifu la'asot ("and they will not add to do," i.e., "will not do again"). The niphal participle nish'arim functions grammatically as the subject noun phrase itself — there is no separate word for "people"; the participle alone carries that sense ("the remaining ones").

The construction yosifu la'asot uses the hiphil of yasaf ("to add") governing an infinitive, a common Hebrew idiom for repeated action, literally "they will not add to do again." The phrase ka-davar ha-ra ha-zeh ("like this evil thing/word") uses davar (H1697), which can mean either "thing" or "word," to characterize the prior offense as a category of act being warned against. The final phrase be-qirbecha ("in your midst") uses a singular pronominal suffix, addressing a singular collective "you," locating the described consequence within that community.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the three-verb Hebrew chain with a participle plus two finite verbs: οἱ ἐπίλοιποι ἀκούσαντες φοβηθήσονται ("the rest, having heard, will be afraid"), merging yishme'u and yira'u into a participial-plus-verb structure rather than two coordinate finite verbs. The LXX also uses ὑμῖν ("among you," plural) where the Hebrew be-qirbecha carries a singular suffix. The Vulgate condenses further: "ut audientes ceteri timorem habeant" ("so that the rest, hearing, may have fear"), turning the fear-verb into a noun phrase ("have fear") and omitting a separate rendering of be-qirbecha altogether.