Deuteronomy 21:11

Summary

The verse describes a scenario in which a man sees, among a group of female captives, a woman of beautiful appearance, and forms an emotional attachment to her, with the stated intention of taking her as a wife. It is constructed as a conditional/circumstantial clause building on the preceding verse.

Key words

• ra.'i.Ta ("you will see", H7200G) — qal sequential perfect, continuing a narrative chain begun earlier; grammatically it presents the seeing as the next link in a sequence of events ("and it will happen that you see").
• shiv.Yah ("captive[s]", H7633) — feminine singular noun with the preposition ba ("in the"), naming the group among which the woman is found; the feminine form points to a collective of female captives.
• ye.fat ("beautiful of", H3303) — feminine singular adjective in construct form, meaning it must be joined to the following noun to.'ar ("appearance", H8389) to form a single descriptive unit, "beautiful of appearance."
• cha.shak.Ta ("you will love", H2836A) — qal sequential perfect, denoting an emotional/physical attachment or desire, following the same narrative chain as ra.'i.Ta.
• la.kach.Ta ("you will take [her]", H3947G) — qal sequential perfect, the third verb in the chain, expressing the intended action of taking the woman, followed by le.kha ("for yourself", H9031+H9005) and le.'i.shah ("to a wife", H9005+H0802H).

What the text says

The verse is built on a chain of three sequential perfect verbs — ra.'i.Ta ("you will see"), cha.shak.Ta ("you will love"), la.kach.Ta ("you will take") — each joined by the narrative vav (ve, H9001). This grammatical structure presents the three actions as a connected sequence of events rather than isolated statements: seeing leads to loving, which leads to taking. The construct phrase 'eshet yefat-to'ar ("a woman beautiful of appearance") uses the construct form of ye.fat to link directly to to.'ar, a construction common in Biblical Hebrew for compound descriptive phrases where an adjective and noun combine tightly rather than standing as separate words.

The phrase la.kach.Ta le.kha le.'i.shah ("you will take for yourself to a wife") doubles the purpose expression: le.kha ("for yourself") marks the beneficiary of the action, while the separate le before 'i.shah ("to a wife") marks the resulting status — the taking is specifically oriented toward marriage, not merely possession. The word ba.h ("in her", H9034 suffixed to the preposition) attaches the object of cha.shak.Ta directly to the verb via pronominal suffix, a typical Hebrew way of expressing "you will desire her."

Differences between versions

The LXX renders cha.shak.Ta ("you will love/desire", H2836A) with ἐνθυμηθῇς, a verb of inward reflection ("you take to heart/consider"), which frames the attachment more cognitively than the Hebrew's verb of desire/attachment. The Vulgate's adamaveris ("you will have fallen in love") leans toward romantic affection. The Hebrew term itself denotes a strong attachment or desire without specifying whether it is primarily emotional, physical, or volitional, leaving this nuance to be filled differently by each version.