Deuteronomy 20:10

Summary

The verse opens a legal instruction addressed to an individual (grammatically singular "you"), describing the situation of approaching a city in order to wage war against it. It stipulates that before engaging, the approaching party must proclaim peace to that city.

Key words

• tik.Rav ("you will draw near", H7126G) — qal imperfect, second person masculine singular, expressing a future/ongoing action: the act of approaching.
• hi.la.Chem ("fight", H3898A) — niphal infinitive, indicating the purpose ("in order to fight") of the approach; the niphal stem here carries a reflexive/reciprocal military sense.
• 'Ir ("a city", H5892B) — feminine singular noun, the object approached and later addressed with feminine pronominal suffixes ('aLeiHa, 'eLeiHa).
• ka.Ra.ta ("you will proclaim", H7121G) — qal sequential perfect, continuing the narrative chain begun with ki-tikRav; it expresses the consequence that follows the approach.
• sha.Lom ("peace", H7965G) — masculine singular noun, the content of what is proclaimed to the city.

What the text says

The sentence is built on a conditional/temporal structure introduced by ki ("if/when", H3588A), followed by the imperfect verb tikRav ("you will draw near"). This construction sets up a protasis: the circumstance of approaching a city. The purpose of that approach is given by the infinitive hilaChem ("to fight"), governed by the preposition le- ("to/for") and followed by 'aleiha ("against it"), where the feminine suffix -ha refers back to 'Ir ("city"), a feminine noun.

The apodosis begins with the sequential perfect veqaRata ("and you shall proclaim"), linked by the narrative vav (H9001) that chains it to the preceding clause as the required action following the approach. The verb qaRata takes the preposition 'el- ("to") with the same feminine suffix -ha, again pointing to the city. The final element, lesalom ("to/for peace"), uses the preposition le- to mark the content or purpose of the proclamation: what is proclaimed is shalom ("peace", H7965G).

The grammatical chain — imperfect (tikRav) followed by sequential perfect (qaRata) — marks a cause-and-consequence relationship: the drawing near triggers, as a required next step, the proclamation.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the city with a plural pronoun (αὐτούς, "them"), differing from the Hebrew's feminine singular suffix (-ha, "her/it") referring to 'Ir. The Vulgate's offeres ei primum pacem ("you shall first offer peace to it") adds the temporal marker "first" (primum), which has no corresponding lexical element in the Hebrew text provided. The BSB's "make an offer of peace" and RV1909's "intimarás la paz" ("you will intimate peace") both interpret qaRata ("proclaim") with vocabulary emphasizing offer/notification rather than the more literal "call out" sense of the Hebrew verb H7121G.