Deuteronomy 25:7
וְאִם־לֹא יַחְפֹּץ הָאִישׁ לָקַחַת אֶת־יְבִמְתּוֹ וְעָלְתָה יְבִמְתּוֹ הַשַּׁעְרָה אֶל־הַזְּקֵנִים וְאָֽמְרָה מֵאֵין יְבָמִי לְהָקִים לְאָחִיו שֵׁם בְּיִשְׂרָאֵל לֹא אָבָה יַבְּמִֽי׃
✦ Hebrew interlinear
Tap a word to see its entry
✦ The same verse in five languages
וְאִם־לֹ֤א יַחְפֹּץ֙ הָאִ֔ישׁ לָקַ֖חַת אֶת־יְבִמְתּ֑וֹ וְעָלְתָה֩ יְבִמְתּ֨וֹ הַשַּׁ֜עְרָה אֶל־הַזְּקֵנִ֗ים וְאָֽמְרָה֙ מֵאֵ֨ין יְבָמִ֜י לְהָקִ֨ים לְאָחִ֥יו שֵׁם֙ בְּיִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל לֹ֥א אָבָ֖ה יַבְּמִֽי׃
ἐὸν δὲ μὴ βούληται ὁ ἄνθρωπος λαβεῖν τὴν γυναῖκα τοῦ ἀδελφοῦ αὐτοῦ, καὶ ἀναβήσεται ἡ γυνὴ ἐπὶ τὴν πύλην ἐπὶ τὴν γερουσίαν καὶ ἐρεῖ Οὐ θέλει ὁ τοῦ ἀνδρός μου ἀναστῆσαι τὸ ὄνομα τοῦ ἀδελφοῦ αὐτοῦ ἐν Ἴ’ οὐκ ἠθέλησεν ὁ ἀδελφὸς τοῦ ἀνδρός μου.
Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0
Latin (Vulgate)
Sin autem noluerit accipere uxorem fratris sui, quæ ei lege debetur, perget mulier ad portam civitatis, et interpellabit majores natu, dicetque: Non vult frater viri mei suscitare nomen fratris sui in Israël, nec me in conjugem sumere.
Si el hombre no quiere tomar a la mujer de su hermano, la mujer de su hermano subirá a la puerta a los ancianos y dirá: “El hermano de mi marido se niega a levantar a su hermano un nombre en Israel. No cumplirá conmigo el deber de hermano de marido”.
Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)
Y si el hombre no quisiere tomar á su cuñada, irá entonces la cuñada suya á la puerta á los ancianos, y dirá: Mi cuñado no quiere suscitar nombre en Israel á su hermano; no quiere emparentar conmigo.
But if the man does not want to marry his brother ’s widow, she is to go to the elders at the city gate and say, “ My husband’s brother refuses to preserve his brother ’s name in Israel. He is not willing to perform the duty of a brother-in-law for me.”
✦ What the text says
Summary
The verse describes the legal procedure when a man refuses to marry his deceased brother's widow (the levirate duty). The widow is instructed to go to the town gate, address the elders, and publicly declare that her husband's brother refuses to fulfill this obligation.
Key words
- yach.Potz ("he will desire", H2654A) — qal imperfect, expressing the man's ongoing/potential unwillingness; the imperfect form frames this as a hypothetical condition introduced by 'im ("if").
- Ka.chat ("take", H3947I) — qal infinitive construct with prefixed la. ("to"), forming the purpose clause "to take" (i.e., to marry); infinitives in Hebrew lack tense and depend on the preceding finite verb for time reference.
- 'al.Tah ("she will go up", H5927G) — qal sequential perfect (vav-consecutive), a form that continues the narrative sequence begun by the conditional clause, functioning almost like a future/consequential action ("then she will go up").
- ha.Kim ("establish", H6965I) — hiphil infinitive construct, causative in force: "to cause to stand/establish" a name, referring to the produce of an heir who continues the dead brother's lineage.
- ya.be.M ("to act as a husband's brother for", H2992) — piel infinitive construct with 1st person suffix -i ("me"), a technical verb denoting the specific legal act of levirate marriage; the piel stem intensifies the root and gives it a specialized, almost juridical, sense distinct from ordinary "taking" (Ka.chat).
What the text says
The verse opens with a conditional clause (ve'im lo' yachPotz, "and if he does not desire") governing the infinitive laKachat ("to take"), producing the sense "if the man does not desire to take." The apodosis shifts into narrative sequence using vav-consecutive perfects ('alTah, 'ameRah), which in Biblical Hebrew narrative style function as sequential future actions dependent on the initial conditional — "then she will go up... and say."
The widow's speech itself contains two near-synonymous statements about the brother-in-law's refusal: first a nominal clause built on me'Ein ("there is no desiring," from the same root as yachPotz above) governing the infinitive haKim ("to establish [a name]"), and second an independent clause using a different verb, 'aVah ("he was willing," H0014), negated, with the piel infinitive yabbemi ("to do the levirate duty for me"). This doubling — one clause about establishing the name, another about the levirate act itself using the specialized verb yabbem — is a feature of the Hebrew's internal parallelism, restating the same refusal from two angles.
Differences between versions
The Vulgate adds an explanatory phrase, "quæ ei lege debetur" ("who is owed to him by law"), which has no equivalent in the Hebrew word list provided. The LXX text as given appears to duplicate the statement about the brother's unwillingness, first with an implied subject ("ὁ τοῦ ἀνδρός μου") and then naming him explicitly ("ὁ ἀδελφὸς τοῦ ἀνδρός μου"), making explicit what the Hebrew leaves as an implied repeated subject across its two parallel clauses.
This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.