Deuteronomy 25:9

Summary

The verse describes a formal public procedure: the brother's wife approaches the man before the elders, removes his sandal, spits in his face, and pronounces a declaration condemning the man who refuses to "build his brother's house."

Key words

• ni.ge.Shah ("she will draw near", H5066G) — niphal sequential perfect; the niphal form marks the subject's own approach as the grammatically passive/reflexive verb stem, continuing the narrative sequence begun in the preceding verses.
• ye.vim.T + o ("brother's wife" + "his", H2994 + H9023) — feminine singular construct noun with pronominal suffix, identifying the woman specifically by her legal relationship to the man (his deceased brother's wife), not merely as "wife" or "widow" in general terms.
• chal.Tzah ("she will draw off", H2502A) — qal sequential perfect; a simple active stem describing her direct physical action on the sandal.
• ye.'a.Seh ("let it be done", H6213A) — niphal imperfect, third person; the passive/reflexive form removes a stated agent, so the text states what "will be done" to the man without naming who does it, consistent with the declarative/customary tone of the pronouncement.
• yiv.Neh ("he will build", H1129) — qal imperfect, negated by lo' ("not", H3808), describing the man's failure to perform the expected act toward "the house of his brother" (beit 'achi, H1004M + H0251G, both construct forms linking house-brother-his in a chain).

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built as a chain of five sequential perfect verbs (ni.ge.Shah, chal.Tzah, ya.re.Kah, 'a.ne.Tah, 'A.me.Rah), each carrying the vav that continues the narrative sequence begun earlier in the passage. Each verb has "she" as its grammatical subject, meaning the sister-in-law is the sole actor performing four consecutive actions — drawing near, removing the sandal, spitting, and then speaking — before her declaration is quoted directly. The construct chains are dense: ye.vim.T-o ("brother's wife-his"), na.'a.L-o ("sandal-his"), rag.L-o ("foot-his"), and beit 'achi-v ("house of brother-his") all link a bare noun to a possessor through the construct state plus suffix, a structure that in Hebrew avoids separate possessive words.

The declaration itself shifts grammatical mode: ye.'a.Seh ("let it be done", H6213A) is a niphal imperfect, distinct from the preceding qal and niphal perfects describing her actions. This verb form states a general or future outcome without naming an agent — the text says only that "thus it will be done to the man," not who does it. The clause describing the man's failure uses lo' yiv.Neh ("he will not build," qal imperfect, H1129) governing the direct object beit 'achiv ("house of his brother"), marked by the object particle 'et (H0853, left untranslated).

Differences between versions

The LXX renders ye.vim.T-o ("his brother's wife") as ἡ γυνὴ τοῦ ἀδελφοῦ αὐτοῦ, "the wife of his brother," a more explicit paraphrase of the same relationship. The LXX also adds ἐν Ἰσραήλ ("in Israel") at the end of the declaration, a phrase not present in the Hebrew text as given. The Vulgate's mulier ("woman") for ye.vim.T-o likewise generalizes the specific term for "brother's wife" found in the Hebrew construct noun.