Deuteronomy 25:16

Summary

The verse states that Yehovah regards as an abomination (to'avat) anyone who commits the acts described in the preceding verses (false weights/measures). The sentence repeats the phrase "everyone who does" twice, first pointing to "these things" and then to "injustice," forming a parallel structure that reinforces the same idea from two angles.

Key words

• ki ("for", H3588A) — introduces the clause as an explanatory/causal statement, linking it to what precedes.
• to'avat ("abomination of", H8441) — construct noun; grammatically requires a following genitive, here "Yehovah your God," meaning the abomination belongs to/is defined by God.
• 'oseh ("[one who] does", H6213A) — qal participle in construct form, appearing twice (position 7 and 10); frames the subject as someone characterized by an ongoing action rather than a single act.
• 'elleh ("these [things]", H0428) — demonstrative particle referring back to the practices just described in the passage.
• 'avel ("injustice", H5766A) — abstract noun functioning as the object of the second occurrence of 'oseh, generalizing the specific violation into a broader moral category.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built on one predicate, to'avat Yehovah 'Eloheikha ("abomination of Yehovah your God"), which governs two parallel constructions: kol-'oseh 'elleh ("everyone who does these things") and kol 'oseh 'avel ("everyone who does injustice"). Both phrases use the same participle 'oseh in construct form, creating a grammatical echo. This repetition is not redundant — it moves from the concrete ("these things," referring to the false weights discussed earlier) to the abstract ("injustice"), suggesting that the specific violation is being classified under a general ethical category.

The word to'avat is in construct with the divine name, meaning the text does not simply say "this is disgusting" but specifically "this is what Yehovah your God finds abominable." The construct chain ties the moral judgment directly to the divine subject rather than presenting it as an independent statement.

Differences between versions

The Vulgate (VULCLEM) splits the single Hebrew predicate into two separate verbs: abominatur ("he abominates") for "the one who does these things," and aversatur ("he turns away from") for "all injustice." This creates two distinct actions attributed to God, where the Hebrew text uses one noun, to'avat, applied twice through parallel participial phrases. The Spanish SBLIBRE and English BSB translations follow the Hebrew's single-predicate structure more closely, treating "everyone who does these things" and "everyone who acts unjustly" as parallel descriptions of one same reality, both governed by "is detestable/abomination to Yehovah."