Deuteronomy 22:14

Summary

The verse describes a husband's legal accusation against his wife: he fabricates grounds for complaint, damages her reputation publicly, and formally states before the community that he married her, had relations with her, and did not find evidence of virginity. The Hebrew presents this as a sequence of deliberate actions using chained narrative verb forms.

Key words

• 'a.li.Lot de.va.Rim ("deeds of words", H5949 + H1697L) — construct chain (noun + noun), a fixed idiom denoting fabricated charges or pretexts; literally "actions of words."
• ho.Tzi' ("he will send forth", H3318H) — hiphil (causative) sequential perfect: the man actively causes a bad name to go out about her, rather than merely acquiring one.
• shem Ra' ("a name bad", H8034 + H7451A) — noun + adjective, the object of ho.Tzi'; denotes a damaged public reputation.
• 'ek.Rav ("I drew near", H7126G) — qal narrative form (vav-consecutive imperfect, distinct from the surrounding sequential perfects), marking the husband's direct speech quoting his own prior action; a euphemism for sexual relations.
• be.tu.Lim ("virginities", H1331) — masculine plural noun, referring to the physical signs or proofs associated with virginity, not a single abstract state.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built as a chain of sequential perfect verbs (Sam, ho.Tzi', 'a.Mar) all governed by the initial vav, each continuing the narrative "and he will do X." This grammatical chaining presents the husband's actions — fabricating accusations, spreading a bad name, and making a formal statement — as one continuous legal act rather than separate, unrelated events. Within his speech (introduced by 'a.Mar), the verbs shift to first-person perfect and narrative forms (la.Kach.ti, 'ek.Rav, ma.Tza.ti), representing his direct quotation to the community.

The construct phrase 'a.li.Lot de.va.Rim ("deeds of words") is notable because it pairs an abstract plural noun ('a.li.Lot) with another noun (de.va.Rim) rather than using a simple adjective, producing an idiomatic expression for pretextual accusations that the two-word English "false charges" does not fully preserve. Likewise, be.tu.Lim appears in the plural, suggesting the Hebrew conceives of physical tokens or evidence rather than a single abstract quality.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders 'a.li.Lot de.va.Rim as προφασιστικοὺς λόγους ("pretextual words"), making explicit the idea of false pretext that the Hebrew construct phrase leaves more literally as "deeds of words." The LXX also renders ho.Tzi' ("he will send forth") with κατενέγκῃ ("bring down"), a different directional nuance than the Hebrew's causative "bring out." The Vulgate adds an interpretive clause absent from the Hebrew — "quibus dimittat eam" ("by which he might divorce her") — specifying a motive (divorce) not stated in the Hebrew text itself. For be.tu.Lim, the LXX preserves the plural (τὰ παρθένια, "tokens of virginity"), while the Vulgate uses the singular "virginem" ("a virgin"), shifting from physical evidence to a general state.