Deuteronomy 2:6

Summary

Deuteronomy 2:6 instructs the audience (plural "you") to pay silver to purchase both food and water from a foreign population, and then to consume what was purchased. The verse uses parallel construction: buy food → eat it; buy water → drink it.

Key words

• 'Okhel ("food", H0400) — masculine singular noun, the object of the first purchase.
• tishberu ("you will buy", H7666) — qal imperfect, 2nd person masculine plural; expresses the ongoing/future action of buying food.
• Kesef ("silver", H3701G) — masculine singular noun, appearing twice, denoting the payment medium for both food and water.
• 'akhalTem ("you will eat", H0398) — qal sequential perfect, continuing the narrative chain after the imperfect verb of buying.
• tikhRu ("you will buy", H3739A) — a different qal imperfect verb from tishberu, used specifically for acquiring water.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built as two parallel clauses joined by ve-gam ("and also", H9002 + H1571), each following the same grammatical pattern: object (food/water) + verb of buying (imperfect) + me'itam ("from them", H9006 + H0854 + H9038) + ba-kesef ("for/with the silver", H9003 + H3701G) + narrative vav + verb of consuming (sequential perfect). This structure creates a tight cause-and-result sequence: the imperfect verb sets up the action of buying, and the sequential perfect (va'akhalTem, ushtiTem) marks the natural continuation — the eating and drinking that follow the purchase.

A notable grammatical detail is that two distinct Hebrew verbs are used for "buy": tishberu (H7666) for food and tikhRu (H3739A) for water. Both are translated as "buy" in English versions, but the underlying roots differ, suggesting the original text distinguishes the transaction verbs even though the semantic outcome (payment in silver, then consumption) is identical for both food and water. The repetition of ba-kesef ("for the silver") in both clauses reinforces the parallel emphasis on monetary exchange as the means of acquisition in both cases.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the water clause with μέτρῳ ("by measure"), a detail not present in the Hebrew text's wording for water acquisition, and uses λήμψεσθε ("you will take/receive") rather than a verb strictly meaning "buy" for the water transaction, while still specifying ἀργυρίου ("of silver"). The Vulgate renders the water clause as aquam emptam haurietis ("you will draw already-purchased water"), placing the purchasing action in a participial form (emptam) rather than as a separate finite verb, differing from the Hebrew's parallel verb structure. The BSB compresses both clauses into a single English sentence ("pay them in silver for the food you eat and the water you drink"), collapsing the two-part Hebrew sequence into one clause without the sequential eat/drink verbs appearing as separate actions.