Deuteronomy 23:6

Summary

Deuteronomy 23:6 prohibits seeking the shalom ("peace", H7965G) and tovah ("good", H2896C) of the group referenced in the preceding context, extending this prohibition across the totality of the addressee's lifetime, phrased with the temporal expression "forever."

Key words

• tid.Rosh ("you will seek", H1875) — qal imperfect, second person masculine singular; the imperfect aspect indicates an action projected into the future or understood as ongoing/habitual, here negated by lo' ("not", H3808) to form a durative prohibition rather than a single-instance command.
• she.lo.Ma ("peace", H7965G) — masculine singular noun in construct state, meaning it is grammatically bound to the following pronominal suffix -m ("their"), yielding "their peace."
• toa.Ta ("good", H2896C) — feminine singular noun, also in construct state with the suffix -m, forming "their good/welfare," joined to the first noun by the conjunction ve ("and", H9002).
• ya.Mei ("days", H3117G) — masculine plural noun in construct, part of the phrase kol-yamekha ("all your days"), which sets the temporal scope of the prohibition.
• 'o.Lam ("ever", H5769G) — masculine singular noun following the preposition le ("for", H9005), together forming le'olam ("forever"), reinforcing the durative sense already present in the imperfect verb.

What the text says

The verse is built as a single negated verbal clause: lo'-tidrosh ("you will not seek") governs two coordinated construct-noun objects, shelomam ("their peace") and vetovatam ("their good"), both marked with the third-person masculine plural suffix -m ("their"). This suffix points back to the referents established in the preceding verses of the chapter, not named again here. The construct chains (shelom + suffix, tovat + suffix) tie the abstract nouns "peace" and "good" tightly to the possessor, producing the sense "their peace" and "their good" as fixed objects of the prohibited action.

The temporal phrase kol-yamekha le'olam ("all your days, forever") stacks two expressions of duration: kol yamekha specifies the entire span of the addressee's life, while le'olam adds a further durative marker. This layering in the Hebrew text extends the prohibition beyond a single moment, using both a lifespan-based phrase and a separate "forever" phrase together.

Differences between versions

The Vulgate renders the verb as non facies... pacem ("you will not make peace") and adds nec quæras ("nor shall you seek"), splitting what the Hebrew expresses with a single verb (tidrosh) governing both objects into two Latin verbs (facies and quæras). The LXX uses προσαγορεύσεις ("you will speak to/greet"), rendering shelomam as εἰρηνικά ("peaceful things") and tovatam as συμφέροντα ("advantageous things"), a lexical choice differing from the Hebrew's abstract construct nouns "peace" and "good." The Vulgate also adds vitae tuae ("of your life"), an explanatory addition not present as a separate word in the Hebrew yamekha ("your days").