Deuteronomy 20:2

Summary

The verse describes a sequence of events tied to the approach of battle: when the people draw near to engage in war, the priest is to come forward and speak to them. The Hebrew presents this as a chain of three consecutive actions introduced by "and it will be."

Key words

• ha.Yah ("it will be", H1961) — qal sequential perfect, opening formula that signals a future narrative sequence, common in legal/procedural texts to introduce "when X happens, then Y."
• ka.ra.ve.khem ("draw near", H7126G) — qal infinitive with the 2nd person masculine plural suffix khem ("you"), giving "in your drawing near," i.e., "when you approach."
• ni.Gash ("he will come near", H5066G) — niphal sequential perfect; the niphal stem here marks the priest's approach as the next link in the chain, continuing directly from the people's approach.
• ko.Hen ("priest", H3548) — definite noun (with article ha, H9009), the subject who performs the approach and the speech.
• di.Ber ("he will speak", H1696G) — piel sequential perfect, intensive stem for the act of speaking, the final action in the three-part chain.

What the text says

The verse is built as a chain of three sequential-perfect verbs, each introduced by the conjunction ve ("and", H9001): ve-hayah ("and it will be"), ve-nigash ("and he will come near"), ve-diber ("and he will speak"). This chain structure is typical of Hebrew procedural or legal instruction, where a temporal clause sets the scene and subsequent verbs describe the ordered steps that follow. The temporal clause itself is formed with the preposition ke ("when", H9004) plus the infinitive ka.ra.ve.khem ("your drawing near", H7126G), which carries a 2nd person masculine plural suffix — grammatically addressing a group ("you all") rather than a single individual.

The subject of the second and third verbs is ha.kohen ("the priest", H3548), marked definite by the article ha (H9009), indicating a specific, known priestly role rather than an unspecified priest. The niphal form of ni.Gash ("he will come near", H5066G) marks the priest's approach as a discrete event within the sequence, while the piel form di.Ber ("he will speak", H1696G) marks the intensive or formal act of address that follows, directed el ha-'am ("to the people", H5971A with H9009), the definite collective noun for the nation as a body.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew infinitive ka.ra.ve.khem carries a plural suffix ("your drawing near," addressed to the group), while the LXX uses the singular ἐγγίσῃς ("you draw near") and the BSB similarly shifts to a singular collective "you." The Vulgate renders the opening temporal clause with an ablative absolute, appropinquante iam proelio ("the battle now approaching"), shifting the grammatical subject from the people's approach to the battle's approach itself, and adds the phrase ante aciem ("before the battle line"), a spatial detail not present in the Hebrew or the LXX.