Deuteronomy 20:9

Summary

The verse describes what happens after the military officials finish addressing the people: commanders are appointed to stand at the head of the people. It is structured as two linked temporal-consequential clauses using the Hebrew narrative sequence pattern "and it will be... and they will appoint."

Key words

• ha.Yah ("it will be", H1961) — sequential perfect that opens a temporal clause, setting up "when X happens, then Y follows."
• kha.Lot ("finish", H3615G) — piel infinitive construct with prefix ke. ("when"), marking the completion of an action as the trigger for what follows.
• sho.te.Rim ("officials", H7860) — qal participle, plural, denoting those actively performing the role of speaking/organizing (not a fixed title but "the ones doing" the officiating).
• Fa.ke.Du ("they will appoint", H6485J) — qal sequential perfect, third person plural, continuing the narrative chain begun by ha.Yah.
• sa.Rei ("commanders of", H8269) — masculine plural construct, forming a genitive chain with tze.va'ot ("armies", H6635A): "commanders of armies."

What the text says

The Hebrew builds a two-part sequence using consecutive perfect verbs (ve.hayah... u.fakedu), a common construction for "when A happens, then B will happen." The first clause centers on ha.shoterim ("the officials", H7860), a qal participle describing men in the ongoing act of speaking (le.dabber, piel infinitive, H1696G) 'el ha'am ("to the people", H5971A). The second clause, introduced by the vav-consecutive on fakedu, shifts the subject: once the officials finish, sarei tzeva'ot ("commanders of armies", H8269 + H6635A construct) are appointed be.rosh ha'am ("at the head of the people", H7218H construct + H5971A).

The construct chain sarei tzeva'ot links "commanders" directly to "armies" without an intervening preposition, a typical Hebrew genitive relationship. The phrase be.rosh ha'am uses rosh ("head") in a construct form to indicate positional leadership — the commanders are placed physically or hierarchically "at the head" of the assembled people.

Differences between versions

The Vulgate diverges structurally: it makes "duces exercitus" ("leaders of the army") the subject of siluerint ("have been silent") and finem loquendi fecerint ("have finished speaking"), whereas the Hebrew assigns the finishing-of-speech action to ha.shoterim ("the officials"), a distinct group from the sarei tzeva'ot who are appointed afterward. The Vulgate's continuation, "unusquisque suos ad bellandum cuneos præparabit" ("each one will prepare his units for battle"), differs from the Hebrew's u.fakedu ("they will appoint") and does not correspond to the act of appointing commanders described in the Hebrew and reflected in the LXX's καταστήσουσιν ἄρχοντας ("they will appoint rulers").