Deuteronomy 22:5

Summary

The verse establishes two parallel prohibitions: an article associated with a man must not be placed on a woman, and a man must not wear a woman's garment. The concluding clause frames this as something Yehovah your God treats as to'evah ("abomination"), applying the label to "everyone who does these things."

Key words

• keli ("garment/article of", H3627) — masculine singular construct; a broad term (often "vessel," "implement," "article") rather than a specific word for clothing, put in construct with gever.
• gever ("a man", H1397) — appears twice, a term for a male person, distinct from the more general ish; used in both clauses to identify the male referent.
• simlat ("garment of", H8071) — feminine singular construct; a more specific term for a mantle/garment, different from keli used in the first clause.
• to'avat ("abomination of", H8441) — feminine singular construct, forming a construct chain with Yehovah Eloheikha, i.e., "an abomination of Yehovah your God."
• 'oseh ("[one] doing", H6213A) — qal participle in construct form, governing 'eleh ("these"), producing the phrase "the doer of these things," a participial construction that functions as a legal/generic subject ("whoever does").

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence divides into two negated clauses joined by ve- ("and"), followed by a causal clause introduced by ki ("for/that"). The first clause uses the verb yihyeh ("it will be", H1961) with the noun keli ("garment/article of", H3627) in construct with gever ("a man", H1397), followed by the preposition 'al ("on", H5921A) and ishah ("a woman", H0802G) — literally "there will not be an article of a man upon a woman." The second clause uses a different verb, yilbash ("he will wear", H3847), with a different noun, simlat ("garment of", H8071), in construct with ishah, applied to gever: "a man will not wear a garment of a woman." The two clauses are not fully symmetrical in vocabulary or verb choice — the first speaks of an "article" being placed on a woman, the second of a man actively "wearing" a woman's garment — a distinction visible only in the Hebrew lexical choices (keli vs. simlat; yihyeh vs. yilbash).

The final clause states that "abomination of Yehovah your God" (to'avat Yehovah Eloheikha, H8441+H3068+H0430G) applies to kol 'oseh 'eleh ("every doer of these [things]", H3605+H6213A+H0428), a construct chain that generalizes the prohibition to any agent performing the actions just described, without specifying gender in this final clause.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders keli as skeuē ("vessels/items"), a fairly literal rendering of the general term, but for simlat ishah it uses the adjectival phrase stolēn gynaikian ("a feminine robe") rather than a construct chain. The Vulgate normalizes both clauses symmetrically with adjectives — veste virili ("manly garment") and veste feminea ("feminine garment") — smoothing over the lexical asymmetry (keli vs. simlat) present in the Hebrew text. Modern translations (BSB, RV1909, SBLIBRE) likewise render both clauses with parallel "clothing" terms, not preserving the Hebrew's distinct vocabulary for the two garments.