Deuteronomy 24:2

Summary

Deuteronomy 24:2 continues a conditional sentence begun in verse 1, describing a woman's departure from her (former) husband's house and her subsequent becoming the wife of another man. The Hebrew presents this as a chain of three sequential actions using the verb form called sequential perfect.

Key words

• ya.tze.'Ah ("she will go out", H3318G) — qal sequential perfect; opens the action-chain, marking the woman's departure.
• bei.T ("house", H1004M) — masculine singular construct, bound to the suffix o ("his", H9023), producing "his house" — the point of origin she leaves.
• ha.le.Khah ("she will go", H1980L) — qal sequential perfect; a second action continuing the sequence after the departure.
• ha.ye.Tah ("she will belong", H1961) — qal sequential perfect of the verb "to be"; here combined with the preposition le to express becoming attached to someone.
• 'ish 'a.Cher ("another man", H0376G + H0312) — masculine singular noun with masculine singular adjective, the endpoint of the sequence: the new man she comes to belong to.

What the text says

The verse is built on three consecutive verbs — ya.tze.'Ah, ha.le.Khah, ha.ye.Tah — all marked as qal sequential perfect and all carrying the "she" subject. This grammatical form links each action to the one before it, producing a narrative-like chain even though the whole unit remains part of a conditional construction begun in the preceding verse. The effect in Hebrew is a stepwise progression: going out, then going (walking away), then coming to belong to another.

The phrase ha.ye.Tah le-'ish 'a.Cher uses the verb "to be" (H1961) with the preposition le ("to", H9005) rather than a dedicated verb meaning "to marry." This construction — "to be/become to a man" — is how the Hebrew expresses becoming someone's wife, without a separate word for "wife" or "marry" appearing in this clause. The construct phrase mi.bei.To ("from his house") anchors the departure specifically to the household of the man mentioned earlier in the conditional sequence, using the possessive suffix o ("his").

Differences between versions

The Hebrew presents three sequential verbs (ya.tze.'Ah, ha.le.Khah, ha.ye.Tah), while the LXX (Swete) compresses this into a participle, ἀπελθούσα ("having departed"), plus one finite verb, γένηται ("she becomes"), omitting a separate rendering for ha.le.Khah ("she will go") and not explicitly translating bei.To ("his house"). The Vulgate similarly reduces the action to a participle plus finite verb, "egressa... duxerit" ("having departed... she leads/takes"), and adds the noun "maritum" ("husband"), making explicit what the Hebrew only implies through le-'ish ("to a man").