Deuteronomy 20:7

Summary

Deuteronomy 20:7 gives an exemption rule for military service: a man who has betrothed a woman but not yet married her is to be sent home, so that he does not die in battle and have another man marry her instead.

Key words

• 'e.Ras ("he has betrothed", H0781) — piel perfect, marking the completed act of formal betrothal, distinct from marriage itself.
• le.ka.Cha ("he has taken", H3947I) — qal perfect with the suffix "her" (H9034), referring to the act of taking the woman as wife (consummating the marriage), not yet done in this case.
• ya.Sho ("let him return", H7725G) — qal jussive, expressing a directive ("let him...") rather than a simple future.
• pen ("lest", H6435) — subordinating particle introducing the negative purpose clause that explains the reason for sending the man home.
• ya.Mut ("he should die", H4191) — qal imperfect following pen, expressing a feared potential outcome (death in battle) rather than a certain one.

What the text says

The verse opens with a rhetorical question built from mi ("who?", H4310) plus ha'ish ("the man", H0376G) and the relative 'asher ("who", H0834A), a construction typical of Deuteronomic exemption laws (compare the preceding verses about the vineyard and the house). The condition is defined by two verbs in sequence: 'e.Ras ("he has betrothed") describes the legal step of betrothal, while the negated le.ka.Cha ("and he has not taken her") marks that the marriage has not been completed. This distinction between betrothal and "taking" a wife is preserved in the Hebrew verbal system through two separate roots and stems (piel vs. qal), though English and Greek versions often use near-synonyms ("betrothed"/"married" or "μεμνήστευται"/"ἔλαβεν") that mask the technical legal difference.

The main clause uses two verbs, yelekh ("let him go", H1980G, qal imperfect) and ya.Sho ("let him return", H7725G, qal jussive), forming a directive pair: the man is to depart from the army and return home. The reason is given by the pen-clause: pen-ya.Mut ba.mmilchamah ("lest he die in the battle"), followed by a further consequence, ve.'ish 'acher yikkachennah ("and another man will take her" — H3947I again, qal imperfect with the suffix "her"). The repetition of the root laqach ("to take") in verses 6 links the outcome — another man taking the betrothed woman — to the same verb used earlier for the incomplete marriage, creating a linguistic parallel between what the original man failed to do and what a substitute man would do instead.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders 'e.Ras ("he has betrothed") with μεμνήστευται and le.ka.Cha ("he has taken") with ἔλαβεν, preserving the two-step distinction. The Vulgate uses despondit ("he has pledged") and accepit ("he has received/taken"), similarly maintaining the sequence. The BSB translation compresses the pen-clause structure, rendering it as "or he may die in battle," turning the Hebrew's explicit "lest" (pen) into a coordinating "or," which shifts the grammatical relationship between the directive and its stated risk without changing the reported outcome.