Deuteronomy 24:14

Summary

The verse prohibits oppressing a hired laborer who is poor and needy, specifying that this protection applies whether the worker is a fellow countryman or a foreign resident living within the addressee's territory and towns.

Key words

• ta.'a.Shok ("you must oppress", H6231) — qal imperfect, second person masculine singular, expressing a prohibited ongoing or future action following the negation lo' ("not", H3808).
• sa.Khir ("a hired laborer", H7916) — masculine singular adjective functioning as the direct object, identifying the specific category of worker protected by this command.
• 'a.Ni ("poor", H6041) and 'ev.Yon ("needy", H0034) — two masculine singular adjectives joined by ve ("and", H9002), stacked as modifiers describing the same sakhir, intensifying the vulnerability of the person in view.
• 'a.Chei.kha ("your countrymen", H0251I + H9021) — masculine plural noun in construct form with a second-person suffix, marking one of the two possible origins of the laborer.
• ge.re.kha ("your sojourner[s]", H1616 + H9021) — masculine singular noun in construct with a second-person suffix, marking the second possible origin, later qualified by the relative clause.

What the text says

The sentence opens with the negated verb lo'-ta.'a.Shok ("you must not oppress"), placing the prohibition at the very front, a structure typical of legal instruction in this text. The object of the verb is sakhir ("a hired laborer", H7916), immediately followed by two stacked adjectives, 'ani ("poor", H6041) and 'evyon ("needy", H0034), joined by the conjunction ve. This doubling of near-synonyms does not add new information but reinforces the economic vulnerability of the laborer being addressed.

The next clause specifies the possible identity of this laborer through two prepositional phrases introduced by me ("one of", H9006), each governing a construct noun: me'acheikha ("one of your countrymen") and, after the disjunctive 'o ("or", H0176A), migercha ("one of your sojourners"). Both nouns carry the second-person singular suffix -kha, tying the laborer's social position directly to the addressee's own community or resident-alien population. The relative clause 'asher be'artzecha ("who is in your land") modifies gercha, clarifying that the sojourner in question is one currently residing within the addressee's territory, and the final phrase bi.sh'a.reikha ("in your gates/towns") narrows the location further to the local settlements. The construct chains throughout ('acheikha, gercha, 'artzecha, sh'areikha) all depend grammatically on the second-person suffix, creating a chain of possession that repeatedly returns to the addressee's own social and territorial sphere.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders sakhir ("hired laborer", H7916) as μισθὸν ("wage/hire"), shifting the object of the prohibition from the person to the payment itself, while the Hebrew and Vulgate (mercedem, though modified by indigentis... pauperis fratris tui) keep the focus more explicitly on the poor and needy individual. The Vulgate's non negabis ("you shall not deny") differs from the Hebrew lo'-ta.'a.shok ("you shall not oppress/exploit"), representing a different verbal nuance—withholding versus active oppression—though both address mistreatment of the laborer's due.