Deuteronomy 20:16

Summary

The verse restricts a preceding rule by specifying that concerning the cities of "these peoples" whom Yehovah is giving as an inheritance, no living breathing entity is to be preserved alive. The clause is introduced by a restrictive adverb marking a contrast with what precedes it in the chapter.

Key words

• Rak ("only", H7535) — a restrictive adverb that narrows the scope of the command, setting apart this case from previously stated rules.
• 'a.Rei ("[the] cities of", H5892B) — masculine plural construct form, linking directly to "the peoples" that follows; construct state signals a genitive-type relationship ("cities of X").
• no.Ten ("[is] about to give", H5414G) — qal participle, masculine singular, describing Yehovah's action as an ongoing/imminent act rather than a completed one, contributing a durative or near-future nuance.
• te.chai.Yeh ("you will let live", H2421) — piel (intensive) imperfect, second person masculine singular; the piel stem here carries a causative sense ("cause to live" / "preserve alive"), and the imperfect indicates future or modal (prohibitive) force when paired with lo' ("not", H3808).
• ne.sha.Mah ("breathing thing", H5397) — feminine singular noun, paired with kol ("any", H3605) in construct, forming the phrase "any breathing thing," a broad category encompassing all that breathes.

What the text says

The sentence opens with Rak ("only," H7535), which functions to isolate this instruction from surrounding material — it marks an exception or a specific case within the larger discourse. The phrase me'arei ha'ammim ha'elleh ("from the cities of these peoples") uses a construct chain: 'a.Rei ("cities of," H5892B) governs ha'ammim ("the peoples," H5971A), which is further specified by the demonstrative 'E.leh ("these," H0428). This construction identifies a particular subset of cities, distinct from others addressed earlier in the chapter.

The relative clause 'asher Yehovah 'eloheikha noten lekha nachalah ("which Yehovah your God is giving you as an inheritance") describes the cities using the participle no.Ten (H5414G), a qal form indicating an action in process — Yehovah "giving" rather than having "given." The noun nachalah ("inheritance," H5159) is in apposition, describing the purpose or nature of the gift.

The main clause, lo' techayyeh kol-neshamah ("you will not let live any breathing thing"), uses the negation lo' (H3808) with the piel imperfect techayyeh (H2421), producing a prohibitive sense. The piel stem intensifies the root idea of "living" into "causing to live" or "preserving alive," and the object kol-neshamah ("any breathing thing," H3605 + H5397) generalizes the scope to all that breathes, without further qualification in the Hebrew.

Differences between versions

The LXX begins differently, using a relative pronoun hōn ("of which") without an equivalent to Rak ("only," H7535), and renders the giving of land with an infinitive klēronomein ("to inherit") rather than mirroring the Hebrew's participle-plus-noun construction (noten... nachalah). The Vulgate similarly omits an explicit equivalent to Rak, opening with "De his autem civitatibus" ("But concerning these cities"), and translates techayyeh with "permittes vivere" ("you will permit to live"), a periphrastic rendering rather than a single-verb form matching the Hebrew piel.