Deuteronomy 25:13

Summary

Deuteronomy 25:13 prohibits keeping two different weights — one heavy, one light — in one's bag for use with a balance scale. The verse uses a Hebrew idiom of repeated nouns to express the idea of "differing" or "varying" weights.

Key words

• lo ("not", H3808) — negation particle placed first in the clause, marking this as a prohibition rather than a simple negative statement.
• yihyeh ("it will belong/be", H1961) — qal imperfect third-person masculine; the imperfect aspect here functions as a prohibitive future, forbidding an ongoing possibility rather than describing a single past event.
• kis'kha ("your bag", built from H3599 + H9021) — construct noun with pronominal suffix, meaning literally "bag-of-you," i.e., the pouch used to carry weights for trade.
• 'even ("a weight", H0068H), repeated as 'even va-'even ("a weight and a weight") — the same noun doubled with the conjunction va ("and", H9002); this reduplication is the grammatical device that produces the sense "differing weights," not merely "one weight and another weight."
• gedolah u-qetannah ("large and small", H1419A + H6996A) — two feminine singular adjectives joined by u ("and"), specifying the nature of the disallowed pair of weights.

What the text says

The clause opens with the negation lo followed by the qal imperfect yihyeh, giving a prohibitive sense: "there shall not be." The subject of this verb is the doubled noun 'even va-'even, literally "a stone and a stone" — since 'even (H0068H) is the same lexical item used for both "stone" and "weight" (stone weights being used on balance scales), the repetition with the conjunction va is not additive (it does not mean "one stone plus one stone") but distributive, an idiomatic Hebrew pattern that conveys "differing" or "varying" items. This structure is comparable to other Hebrary repetitions expressing diversity.

The adjectives gedolah ("large") and qetannah ("small") that follow specify what kind of difference is prohibited: one weight heavier, one lighter, both used in the same bag (kis'kha, "your bag"). The verse forbids keeping such a mismatched pair for use in transactions.

Differences between versions

The LXX preserves the reduplicated-noun pattern with στάθμιον καὶ στάθμιον ("weight and weight"), matching the Hebrew idiom closely, but it renders the final two adjectives with a disjunctive conjunction, μέγα ἢ μικρόν ("great or small"), where the Hebrew has the conjunctive u ("and") in gedolah u-qetannah.

The Vulgate does not preserve the noun-repetition idiom at all; instead of "a weight and a weight," it renders the sense interpretively as diversa pondera ("differing weights"), followed by majus et minus ("greater and lesser"), using the conjunctive "et" matching the Hebrew "and."