Deuteronomy 24:20

Summary

The verse instructs that when a person beats the olives from their tree, they must not go back over the branches a second time. Whatever remains on the tree after the first beating is designated for the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow.

Key words

• tach.Bot ("you will beat", H2251) — qal imperfect, describing the ongoing/future act of striking the olive tree to knock down its fruit.
• zei.te.kha ("your olive tree", H2132H + H9021) — masculine singular noun in construct with the 2nd person suffix, identifying the tree as belonging to the addressee.
• te.fa.'Er ("you will go over the boughs", H6286B) — piel imperfect, an intensive verb form suggesting a thorough or repeated action over the branches, here negated.
• 'a.cha.Rei.kha ("behind you", H0310A + H9031) — construct plural form with suffix, indicating a second pass "after" the first beating.
• yih.Yeh ("it will belong / it will be", H1961) — qal imperfect 3rd masculine singular, the verb "to be" projecting the future state of the remaining olives as belonging to the vulnerable groups.

What the text says

The sentence opens with the conditional particle ki ("if", H3588A), setting up a case-law structure typical of the surrounding legal material: "if you beat your olive tree..." The verb tach.Bot ("you will beat") uses the qal stem, a simple active action, referring to the standard harvesting technique of striking the tree so olives fall.

The prohibition that follows, lo' te.fa.'Er ("you will not go-over-the-boughs"), uses the piel stem of the root behind H6286B, which in this context denotes the act of stripping or going over branches thoroughly a second time — an intensified form of action, here forbidden. The phrase 'a.cha.Rei.kha ("after you") reinforces that this is a repeated pass following the initial beating, not the first harvesting act itself.

The final clause names three recipients — la.Ger ("to the sojourner", H1616), la.i.ya.Tom ("to the fatherless", H3490), and la.'al.ma.Nah ("to the widow", H0490) — joined by the conjunction ve ("and", H9002) before the last term. The verb yih.Yeh ("it will be/belong") closes the sentence, assigning the remaining olives to these three groups as a future state of ownership, without a separate verb of "leaving" or "giving" in the Hebrew itself — the produce simply "will be" theirs.

Differences between versions

The Vulgate renders the structure with explicit verbs of action absent in the Hebrew: "non reverteris ut colligas: sed relinques" ("you will not return to gather, but you will leave"), making explicit the implied "leaving" that the Hebrew conveys only through yih.Yeh ("it will be"). The LXX similarly adds "μνησθήσῃ ὅτι οἰκέτης ἦσθα ἐν γῇ Αἰγύπτῳ" ("you will remember that you were a servant in the land of Egypt") and a further clause about the commandment, material not present in this Hebrew verse as given.