Deuteronomy 20:8

Summary

This verse continues the address of the military officials to the people, instructing that any man who is fearful or faint-hearted should be sent home before battle. The stated reason is to prevent his fear from spreading and weakening ("melting") the resolve of his fellow soldiers.

Key words

• ya.se.Fu ("they will repeat/continue", H3254) — qal sequential perfect, marking that the officials' speech continues from a previous action (addition/repetition of speaking).
• sho.te.Rim ("officials", H7860) — qal participle, masculine plural, describing those who function as officials (literally "the ones who do [official duty]").
• ya.Re' ("fearful", H3373) and Rakh ("weak of", H7390) — adjectives describing the man's psychological state; Rakh is in construct form, linking directly to le.Vav ("heart", H3824), producing the phrase "weak of heart."
• yi.Mas ("it will be melted", H4549) — niphal (passive/reflexive) imperfect, describing the heart's condition as something that undergoes melting, not an action the man himself performs on others.
• le.Vav ("heart of", H3824) — appears twice in construct chains: once for the officials' warning about "the heart of his brothers" (le.Vav 'e.Cha + suffix), and once in "like his heart" (ki.le.Va.vo), forming a comparison.

What the text says

The verse opens with a narrative vav on ya.se.Fu ("and they will repeat/continue"), signaling that this is a continuation of a prior speech act (the officials' address to the people, mentioned earlier in the chapter). The officials (sho.te.Rim, H7860) are grammatically marked as participles, meaning the noun form itself designates an ongoing role or function ("the ones who officiate") rather than a fixed title alone.

The rhetorical question "who is the man..." uses the interrogative mi (H4310) with a definite article on 'Ish ("the man," H0376G), followed by two adjectives — ya.Re' ("fearful," H3373) and Rakh... le.Vav ("weak of heart," H7390 + H3824) — both agreeing in gender and number with "man." The construct relationship in Rakh le.Vav ties the adjective directly to the noun "heart," producing a compound description rather than two separate qualities.

The consequence clause uses the niphal stem for yi.Mas ("it will be melted," H4549), a passive/reflexive form indicating that the heart's weakening happens to it, not that the frightened man actively causes it — though the outcome is linked to his presence among "his brothers" ('e.Cha, H0251I). The comparison closes with ki.le.Va.vo ("like his heart"), using the same noun le.Vav (H3824) to draw a direct parallel between the fearful man's heart and that of his companions.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders sho.te.Rim (H7860, "officials") as γραμματεῖς ("scribes"), a different occupational term than the Hebrew's participle for those enacting official duty. The LXX text also shows a doubled imperative, πορευέσθω πορευέσθω ("let him go, let him go"), not matched by a repeated verb in the Hebrew, which has only one jussive-imperfect pair (ye.Lekh, ya.Sho). Where the Hebrew states the melting of the heart as a direct consequence introduced by ve.Lo' ("and not," H3808), both the LXX (ἵνα μὴ, "so that not") and the Vulgate (ne, "lest") render it explicitly as a purpose clause.