Deuteronomy 21:3

Summary

The verse establishes a procedure: the elders of the city nearest to a slain person must take a young cow from the herd, one that has never done work or pulled a yoke. The Hebrew sentence sets up the identifying condition (proximity of the city) and then specifies the two qualifying negatives about the heifer.

Key words

• ha.Yah ("it will be", H1961) — qal sequential perfect, continuing the narrative chain from the preceding legal case; it introduces the procedural clause "and it will be [that]..."
• ke.ro.Vah ("near", H7138) — feminine singular adjective modifying 'Ir ("city", H5892B), marking which city is responsible based on proximity to the corpse.
• la.ke.Chu ("they will take", H3947G) — qal sequential perfect, third person plural, the main action performed by the elders.
• 'u.Bad ("it has been worked", H5647I) — pual (passive intensive) perfect, describing the heifer's history: work has not been done on/with it.
• ma.she.Khah ("it has dragged", H4900) — qal perfect, third person feminine singular, describing that the heifer has not pulled anything, specifically tied to 'Ol ("a yoke", H5923).

What the text says

The verse opens with the narrative vav on ha.Yah ("it will be", H1961), a sequential perfect that continues the legal procedure begun in the prior verses. The subject clause "the city, the near one, to the slain [one]" (ha.'Ir ha.ke.ro.Vah 'el he.cha.Lal) identifies which city bears responsibility: the one nearest to the corpse (cha.Lal, "[one] slain", H2491A). This is a nominal predication before the main verb of action follows.

The second clause pivots with another sequential perfect, la.ke.Chu ("they will take", H3947G), whose subject is zik.Nei ha.'Ir ha.Hiv' — "the elders of that city" (H2205G construct + demonstrative Hiv', H1931). The object is 'eg.Lat ba.Kar ("a heifer of the herd", H5697A construct + H1241), specified by two relative clauses introduced by 'a.Sher ("which", H0834A). The first relative clause uses the pual perfect 'u.Bad ("it has been worked", H5647I) with the negation lo' (H3808), stating passively that no work has been done on it — the preposition Ba ("by it", H9003+H9034) refers back to the heifer. The second relative clause uses the qal perfect ma.she.Khah ("it has dragged", H4900), again negated, specifying that it has not pulled 'Ol ("a yoke", H5923). The grammatical distinction between the passive pual (work done to the animal) and the active qal (the animal's own action of dragging) marks two separate qualifying conditions for the heifer, both expressed through completed-action perfect forms despite the future-oriented procedural context.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders cha.Lal ("[one] slain", H2491A) as τραυματίᾳ ("wounded person"), a somewhat broader term than the Hebrew's specific reference to a slain body. The Vulgate expands the second relative clause, adding "nec terram scidit vomere" ("nor cut the earth with a plowshare"), a phrase not present in the Hebrew text, which only mentions the yoke ('Ol, H5923) without reference to plowing.