Deuteronomy 23:11

וְהָיָה לִפְנֽוֹת־עֶרֶב יִרְחַץ בַּמָּיִם וּכְבֹא הַשֶּׁמֶשׁ יָבֹא אֶל־תּוֹךְ הַֽמַּחֲנֶה׃

✦ Hebrew interlinear

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✦ The same verse in five languages

Hebrew

וְהָיָ֥ה לִפְנֽוֹת־עֶ֖רֶב יִרְחַ֣ץ בַּמָּ֑יִם וּכְבֹ֣א הַשֶּׁ֔מֶשׁ יָבֹ֖א אֶל־תּ֥וֹךְ הַֽמַּחֲנֶה׃

Greek (Septuagint)

καὶ ἔσται τὸ πρὸς ἑσπέραν λούσεται τὸ σῶμα αὐτοῦ ὕδατι, καὶ δεδυκότος ἡλίου εἰσελεύσεται εἰς τὴν παρεμβολήν. .

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

Latin (Vulgate)

et non revertetur, priusquam ad vesperam lavetur aqua: et post solis occasum regredietur in castra.

Spanish

sino que, cuando llegue la noche, se bañará en agua. Cuando se ponga el sol, entrará en el campamento.

Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)

Y será que al declinar de la tarde se lavará con agua, y cuando fuere puesto el sol, entrará en el campo.

English

When evening approaches, he must wash with water, and when the sun sets he may return to the camp.

✦ What the text says

Summary

The verse describes a two-stage sequence: at the approach of evening a person washes with water, and at sunset he returns into the middle of the camp. The Hebrew marks this as a continuation of a prior narrative situation using a sequential verb form.

Key words

ha.Yah ("it will be", H1961) — sequential perfect; ties this verse to the preceding narrative, functioning as "and it will happen that..."
f.not ("turning of", H6437G) — infinitive construct with the preposition li ("to"), forming the idiom "at the turning of evening," marking a point in time rather than a completed action.
yir.Chatz ("he will wash", H7364) — imperfect qal, denoting the required future/ongoing action once the time condition is met.
Vo' ("comes/coming of", H0935K) — infinitive construct paired with khe ("just as", H9004), forming "as the sun comes [in]," a temporal clause parallel to lifnot erev.
ya.Vo' ("he will come", H0935G) — imperfect qal, same root as Vo' but finite, describing the subject's own entry into the camp.

What the text says

The verse is built on two parallel temporal constructions using infinitives with prepositions: li-fnot erev ("at the turning of evening") and u-khe-vo ha-shemesh ("and as the sun comes/sets"). Both use the infinitive construct form of movement/turning verbs to mark points in the day rather than describing the sun or evening as agents performing completed actions. The main verbs, yirchatz ("he will wash") and yavo ("he will come"), are both imperfect qal forms, indicating actions expected to occur following each temporal marker — first washing with water (ba-mayim, H4325G), then entry into the middle of the camp (tokh ha-machaneh, H8432 construct + H4264).

The repetition of the root bo' (H0935) in both the infinitive Vo' ("coming of [the sun]") and the finite yavo ("he will come") creates a wordplay in Hebrew: the sun's "coming" (setting) corresponds to the man's "coming" (entering) the camp — a correspondence not reproducible with different English verbs like "sets" and "return."

Differences between versions

The LXX adds τὸ σῶμα αὐτοῦ ("his body") as the explicit object of washing, specifying what the Hebrew yirchatz ("he will wash") leaves unstated beyond the instrumental ba-mayim ("with water").

The Vulgate frames the sequence differently, using "et non revertetur, priusquam... lavetur" ("and he will not return before he is washed"), presenting the wash as a precondition for return, whereas the Hebrew presents the two actions using parallel sequential imperfects (yirchatz... yavo) without an explicit negative or "before" construction.

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