Deuteronomy 20:12

Summary

The verse describes the conditional outcome when a city does not accept peace terms: it will instead wage war, and the Israelites are instructed to besiege it. The Hebrew uses a chain of sequential verb forms to present this as a logical progression from refusal to conflict to siege.

Key words

• tashLim ("it will make peace", H7999B) — hiphil (causative) imperfect, third person feminine singular, referring to the city; the causative stem suggests "causing peace" or "completing peace terms," not merely feeling peaceful.
• 'asetah ("it will make", H6213H) — qal sequential perfect, continuing the narrative logic begun by the conditional clause; grammatically it functions as a continuation of the "if" scenario rather than a simple past action.
• milchamah ("war", H4421) — feminine singular noun, the direct object of 'asetah, forming the phrase "make war."
• tzarTa ("you will lay siege", H6696A) — qal sequential perfect, second person masculine singular, shifting the subject from the city (feminine "it") to the addressee ("you"), marking the transition from the city's action to Israel's response.
• 'im ("if", H0518A) — conditional particle opening the verse, setting up the entire clause as a hypothetical contrasted with a prior scenario (implied by the initial vav, "and").

What the text says

The verse is built as a conditional ('im) followed by two sequential perfect verbs ('asetah, tzarTa) that continue the logical flow begun by the imperfect verb tashLim. This grammatical chaining is a common Biblical Hebrew structure: the imperfect states the hypothetical condition ("if it will not make peace"), and the subsequent perfects with vav describe what follows as a consequence, even though they are morphologically perfect forms. The subject shifts mid-verse from the city (feminine, matching tashLim and 'asetah) to the addressee, marked by the second-person suffixes in 'iMakh ("with you," H5973A + H9031) and the second-person verb tzarTa.

The phrase tashLim 'iMakh uses the hiphil stem of the root behind "peace," giving a causative sense — the city would be the one causing or completing peace terms — rather than a stative "being peaceful." The pronominal suffixes (-kh, H9031) attached to the preposition 'im ("with," H5973A) mark the addressee as the object of the city's potential peace-making or war-making.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders tashLim ("it will make peace") as ὑπακούσωσίν ("they should obey/listen"), shifting the sense from "making peace" to "submitting/obeying." The Vulgate renders it as foedus inire noluerit ("should refuse to enter a covenant"), emphasizing covenant-making rather than peace as a general state. Both versions preserve the second clause about waging war and the instruction to besiege, but with the LXX using plural verbs (ὑπακούσωσίν, ποιῶσιν) where the Hebrew has singular feminine forms referring to the city.