Deuteronomy 21:18

כִּֽי־יִהְיֶה לְאִישׁ בֵּן סוֹרֵר וּמוֹרֶה אֵינֶנּוּ שֹׁמֵעַ בְּקוֹל אָבִיו וּבְקוֹל אִמּוֹ וְיסְּרוּ אֹתוֹ וְלֹא יִשְׁמַע אֲלֵיהֶֽם׃

✦ Hebrew interlinear

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✦ The same verse in five languages

Hebrew

כִּֽי־יִהְיֶ֣ה לְאִ֗ישׁ בֵּ֚ן סוֹרֵ֣ר וּמוֹרֶ֔ה אֵינֶ֣נּוּ שֹׁמֵ֔עַ בְּק֥וֹל אָבִ֖יו וּבְק֣וֹל אִמּ֑וֹ וְיסְּר֣וּ אֹת֔וֹ וְלֹ֥א יִשְׁמַ֖ע אֲלֵיהֶֽם׃

Greek (Septuagint)

Ἐὰν δὲ δέ τινι ᾖ υἱὸς ἀπειθὴς καὶ ἐρεθιστὴς, οὐχ ὑπακούων φωνὴν πατρὸς καὶ φωνὴν μητρός, καὶ παιδεύσωσιν σὐτὸν ὡς ἱν αὐτὸν καὶ μὴ εἰσακούῃ αὐτῶν·

Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0

Latin (Vulgate)

Si genuerit homo filium contumacem et protervum, qui non audiat patris aut matris imperium, et coërcitus obedire contempserit:

Spanish

Si un hombre tiene un hijo testarudo y rebelde que no obedece la voz de su padre ni la de su madre, y aunque lo castiguen, no les hace caso,

Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)

Cuando alguno tuviere hijo contumaz y rebelde, que no obedeciere á la voz de su padre ni á la voz de su madre, y habiéndolo castigado, no les obedeciere;

English

If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and does not listen to them when disciplined,

✦ What the text says

Summary

Deuteronomy 21:18 introduces a legal case (ki, "if") describing a son who is soRer ("stubborn", H5637) and moReh ("rebellious", H4784), who refuses to obey his father and mother even after they discipline him. The verse sets up the conditions for the case treated in the following verses.

Key words

yihYeh ("he will belong/be", H1961) — qal imperfect of "to be," combined with the preposition le- ("to") to form a possessive construction: "there will be to a man a son," i.e., "a man has a son."
soRer ("stubborn", H5637) — qal participle, masculine singular, describing an ongoing characteristic rather than a single act; paired with moReh ("rebellious", H4784), also a participle, joined by u- ("and").
'eiNennu ("he is not", H0369 + suffix) — a negative existential particle with pronominal suffix, combined with the participle shoMe'a ("listening", H8085H) to express continuous non-action: "he is not [one who is] listening."
yisseRu ("they will discipline", H3256) — piel (intensive) stem, sequential perfect, indicating a deliberate, repeated, or intensive act of correction, distinct from a simple qal action.
'aleiHem ("to them", H0413 + H9038) — preposition with third-person plural suffix, referring back to the father and mother's voice mentioned earlier.

What the text says

The verse opens with a legal conditional formula built on ki ("if") plus yihYeh le- ("there will be to"), the standard Hebrew way of expressing possession — literally "if there will be to a man a son," rendered idiomatically as "if a man has a son." The son is characterized by two parallel qal participles, soRer and moReh, both describing habitual traits (stubbornness, rebelliousness) rather than isolated events, since participles in Hebrew often denote ongoing states.

The clause 'eiNennu shoMe'a uses the negative particle 'ein with a suffix plus a participle, a construction that expresses persistent non-listening rather than a single refusal — "he is [one who is] not listening" — applied to the "voice" (qol, H6963A) of both father and mother, each in construct form linking to 'aviv ("his father") and 'immo ("his mother").

The narrative then shifts to sequential perfect verbs joined by ve-: yisseRu 'oto ("they will discipline him," piel stem, marking intensive correction) followed by lo' yishMa' 'aleiHem ("he will not listen to them," qal imperfect). The piel stem of yisseRu signals a deliberate corrective action, distinguishing the disciplining act from the ordinary "listening" verbs used elsewhere in the verse, which remain in the qal stem throughout.

Differences between versions

The Vulgate compresses the sequence into a single subordinate clause, "coërcitus obedire contempserit" ("having been restrained, he refuses to obey"), treating discipline and refusal as one continuous event, whereas the Hebrew presents them as two sequential actions (yisseRu... ve-lo' yishMa') joined by the narrative ve-. The LXX text provided renders the Hebrew yisseRu ("they discipline him") with a Greek subjunctive construction that appears textually irregular (παιδεύσωσιν σὐτὸν ὡς ἱν αὐτὸν), differing in wording from the more literal parallel structure of the Hebrew.

This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.