Deuteronomy 27:17

Summary

Deuteronomy 27:17 pronounces a curse on anyone who moves or displaces a neighbor's boundary marker, and the assembled people respond by affirming this curse with "amen."

Key words

• 'aRur ("[is] cursed", H0779) — qal passive participle, marking the subject as one under a permanent state of cursedness, not a one-time action.
• maSig ("[one who] displaces", H5253) — hiphil (causative) participle, indicating an agent who actively causes something to move or shift, here referring to boundary lines.
• geVul ("boundary of", H1366G) — masculine singular construct, linking grammatically to the following noun to form "boundary of [someone]."
• re'Ehu ("his neighbor", H7453 + H9023) — construct noun with pronominal suffix "his," completing the phrase "boundary of his neighbor."
• 'aMar ("it will say", H0559) — qal sequential perfect, continuing the narrative chain and indicating a response that follows logically from the pronounced curse.

What the text says

The verse opens with 'aRur ("cursed", H0779), a passive participle that functions predicatively without a copula, a common construction in Hebrew curse formulas. The subject of this cursed state is maSig geVul re'Ehu — literally "the one displacing the boundary of his neighbor." The hiphil participle maSig (H5253) casts the subject as someone who actively causes displacement, distinguishing this from a simple qal verb "to move." The construct chain geVul re'Ehu (H1366G + H7453 + H9023) ties the boundary directly to "his neighbor," showing that the object being displaced belongs to another person's property.

The second half of the verse shifts to narrative sequence with ve'aMar (H9001 + H0559), a vav-consecutive perfect that continues a chain of similar pronouncements (this verse belongs to a longer list of curses in Deuteronomy 27). The subject is kol-ha'Am ("all the people", H3605 + H9009 + H5971A), and the verb 'aMar here functions in a future/sequential sense — "will say." The people's response is a single word, 'aMen (H0543), an interjection of affirmation that formally seals the curse being pronounced.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders 'aMar with a plural future form (ἐροῦσιν, "they will say"), matching the collective subject "all the people" explicitly in verb number, whereas the Hebrew 'aMar is grammatically singular (agreeing with kol, "all," as a collective singular noun). The LXX also translates 'aMen (H0543) as Γένοιτο ("may it be" / "so be it"), an interpretive rendering rather than a transliteration, while the Vulgate keeps "Amen" as a direct transliteration, as do the RV1909, BSB, and SBLIBRE.