Deuteronomy 28:22

Summary

Deuteronomy 28:22 lists a series of afflictions with which Yehovah will strike the disobedient party: various sicknesses, then "sword," then agricultural blights. The verse closes with a statement that these afflictions will pursue the person until destruction.

Key words

• yakekhah ("he will strike you", H5221) — hiphil (causative) imperfect verb, third person, with second-person suffix; the causative stem marks Yehovah as the active agent inflicting the blow.
• shachefet ("consumption", H7829) — feminine singular noun with prefixed preposition ba ("with the", H9003), the first in a chain of seven items joined by the conjunction u ("and", H9002).
• cherev ("sword", H2719) — feminine singular noun, notable because it stands grammatically parallel to disease terms and to agricultural terms (blight, mildew) in the same list, despite referring to a different kind of harm.
• redafu ("they will pursue", H7291) — qal sequential perfect, third person plural, continuing the narrative sequence begun by yakekhah; the plural verb implies the preceding list of afflictions as its subject.
• 'avedekha ("your perishing", H0006) — qal infinitive with second-person suffix, following the preposition 'ad ("until", H5704), marking the endpoint of the pursuit.

What the text says

The sentence opens with a single hiphil verb, yakekhah ("he will strike you," H5221), which governs the entire list that follows. Each affliction is introduced by the preposition ba ("with the," H9003) attached to a feminine or masculine singular noun, and the items are strung together with the conjunction u ("and," H9002): shachefet ("consumption," H7829), kaddachat ("fever," H6920), dalleket ("inflammation," H1816), charchur ("feverish heat," H2746), cherev ("sword," H2719), shiddafon ("blight," H7711B), and yeraqon ("mildew," H3420). Grammatically these seven nouns are treated as parallel objects of the same preposition and verb, regardless of whether they denote bodily illness, weapon-inflicted harm, or crop disease.

The clause then shifts using the narrative vav (H9001) attached to redafu ("they will pursue you," H7291), a qal sequential perfect that continues the action begun by the initial hiphil verb. The plural form indicates that the afflictions themselves (rather than Yehovah directly) are now the grammatical subject doing the pursuing. The final phrase, 'ad 'avedekha ("until your perishing," H5704 + H0006), uses an infinitive construct with a pronominal suffix to mark the temporal limit of the pursuit — the action continues up to the point of destruction, without the infinitive specifying manner or further detail beyond that boundary.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders cherev ("sword," H2719) as ῥίγει ("with cold/chill"), grouping it with the other bodily-affliction terms rather than treating it as a weapon term, unlike the Hebrew list which places "sword" among agricultural and disease terms without distinction. The Vulgate's aëre corrupto ("corrupted air") for shiddafon ("blight," H7711B) describes an atmospheric cause rather than the crop-blight sense reflected in the Hebrew noun itself.