Deuteronomy 24:7

Summary

The verse establishes a legal case: if a man is found kidnapping ("stealing a person") from among his fellow Israelites, treating him as a slave and selling him, that kidnapper is to die, and the evil is to be removed from the community.

Key words

• yimmaTze' ("he will be found", H4672) — niphal imperfect, passive: the man is "found" or "caught," not the subject acting but the one discovered in the act.
• goNev ("stealing", H1589) — qal participle, describing an ongoing characteristic action: "the one who steals," modifying 'ish ("man").
• Nefesh ("a person", H5315J) — feminine singular noun, the direct object of goNev; here it denotes a human being (a "life" or "soul") who is stolen, not merely a slave or object.
• hit'amMer ("he will treat as a slave", H6014B) — hithpael sequential perfect, a reflexive/intensive stem suggesting the subject forcibly imposes mastery over the victim; continues the narrative chain begun by ve-.
• bi'arTa ("you will remove", H1197I) — piel sequential perfect, second person: an intensive verb of "burning out" or purging, addressed directly to "you" (singular), shifting from third-person case description to direct address.

What the text says

The verse is built as a conditional legal formula introduced by ki ("if", H3588A), followed by a chain of sequential perfect verbs (ve-hit'amMer, u-mekhaRo, u-Met, u-vi'arTa) that narrate the consequence in sequence: he enslaves him, he sells him, the thief dies, and "you" purge the evil. The subject of the conditional clause is 'ish ("man", H0376I) modified by the participle goNev ("stealing", H1589), whose object is Nefesh ("a person", H5315J) — grammatically feminine, though referring to a human victim, specified as being "from your countrymen" (me-'echaV, H0251I with pronominal suffix) and "from the sons of Israel" (mi-benei Yisra'El, H1121G + H3478), doubling the identification of the victim's group.

The verbal chain shifts grammatical subject: the first three sequential perfects (hit'amMer, mekhaRo, Met) describe the kidnapper's actions and fate in third person, while the final verb bi'arTa switches to second-person singular, directly addressing the listener/reader who must execute the removal of ha-Ra' ("the evil", H7451B) mi-qirBecha ("from your midst", H7130G with suffix H9021). This shift from case-law narration to direct imperative-like address is a grammatical feature not always visible in translation.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the verb corresponding to hit'amMer ("he will treat as a slave") with καταδυναστεύσας ("having oppressed/dominated"), and the Vulgate uses sollicitans ("enticing, soliciting") for the participle goNev ("stealing"), differing from a straightforward "stealing" sense; the Vulgate also adds "acceperit pretium" ("received a price"), a detail not present in the Hebrew verbal chain, which only states mekhaRo ("he will sell him", H4376).