Deuteronomy 28:23

Summary

The verse declares that the sky above the addressee will become nechoshet ("bronze", H5178A) and the ground beneath him will become barzel ("iron", H1270). It uses parallel construct phrases to describe both the heavens and the earth as located relative to the person ("over your head" / "under you"), transformed into metallic substances.

Key words

• ha.Yu ("they will be", H1961) — qal sequential perfect, third person plural, continuing the narrative sequence begun earlier in the chapter; it governs both "heavens" and later implicitly "earth" as subjects that "will be."
• sha.Mei.kha ("your heavens", H8064 + H9021) — masculine plural noun in construct form with a second-person suffix, meaning "the heavens of you," i.e., the sky belonging to or associated with the addressee.
• ro.she.kha ("your head", H7218A + H9021) — masculine singular construct noun with suffix, used inside the relative clause "which is over your head" to locate the sky spatially.
• tach.Tei.kha ("under you", H8478G + H9031) — masculine plural construct noun with suffix, functioning as a compound preposition-like expression meaning "beneath you," paralleling 'al-rosheka ("over your head").
• nechoshet ("bronze", H5178A) and barzel ("iron", H1270) — both feminine and masculine singular nouns respectively, functioning as predicate nouns describing the resulting substance of the heavens and the earth.

What the text says

The verse is built as two parallel clauses joined by the conjunction ve ("and", H9002). Each clause names a cosmic element (shamekha, "your heavens"; ha'aretz, "the ground") followed by a relative clause introduced by 'asher ("which", H0834A) that locates it spatially — "which is over your head" and "which is under you" — and then a predicate noun stating the substance it will become. The verb hayu ("they will be", H1961) appears only once, at the head of the sentence, governing the first clause explicitly; the second clause ("and the ground... iron") omits a repeated verb, relying on the parallel structure to imply the same verbal sense. This ellipsis is a common feature of Hebrew parallelism, where the second half of a couplet borrows syntax from the first.

The construct chains sha.Mei.kha and ro.she.kha, and tach.Tei.kha, all carry the second-person masculine singular suffix -kha, reinforcing that both the sky and the ground stand in direct relation to the addressee — "your heavens," "your head," "under you." The predicate nouns nechoshet and barzel stand without a copula, typical of Hebrew nominal clauses, where the verb "to be" is understood from context or from the initial hayu.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders hayu with a singular future ἔσται ("will be") governing only "the sky" (ὁ οὐρανὸς) and adds "to you" (σοι), making explicit a dative sense not overtly marked by a separate word in the Hebrew beyond the suffixed -kha. The Vulgate uses "Sit" (subjunctive "let it be") for the first clause and shifts tachtekha ("under you") to "quam calcas" ("which you tread"), a interpretive rendering rather than a literal "under you."