Deuteronomy 28:30

Summary

Deuteronomy 28:30 describes three parallel scenarios of frustrated labor: a man betroths a woman but another man takes her, he builds a house but does not live in it, and he plants a vineyard but does not benefit from its produce. Each clause follows the same pattern — an action performed by "you" followed by a negation or reversal performed by someone else or left unrealized.

Key words

• te'ares ("you will betroth", H0781) — piel imperfect, intensive stem indicating the formal act of betrothal, not simply desiring or noticing.
• yishkavennah ("he will lie with her", H7901 + H9034) — qal imperfect with pronominal suffix "her," describing the action of "another man" ('ish 'acher, H0376G/H0312) as a direct counter-action to the betrothal.
• tivneh ("you will build", H1129) — qal imperfect, second person masculine, parallel in form to te'ares and titta', establishing the repeated construction across all three clauses.
• techallelennu ("you will put to common use", H2490) — piel imperfect with suffix "it," referring to the vineyard; the piel stem here denotes an intensive action of first-use or removing something from a restricted/sacred status to ordinary use.
• bo ("in it", H9033 + preposition/article H9003) — pronominal suffix attached to "house," marking the object of non-dwelling in the second clause.

What the text says

The verse is built on three symmetrical bicola, each with the same syntactic skeleton: object noun + second-person qal/piel imperfect verb ("you will do X"), followed by ve-lo' ("and not") or a contrasting subject + verb showing the action is undone or performed by another. In the first pair, the woman is object of te'ares ("you will betroth", H0781), and the subject shifts to "another man" ('ish 'acher) who performs yishkavennah ("will lie with her", H7901). In the second and third pairs, the subject remains "you" throughout, but the verb of completion (tivneh, "you will build," H1129; titta', "you will plant," H5193) is followed by ve-lo' plus a verb of expected use (teshev, "you will dwell," H3427; techallelennu, "you will put to use," H2490) that is negated.

The Hebrew term techallelennu (H2490) carries the sense of "making ordinary" or "putting to common use," often applied to the first use of a vineyard's fruit after a period of restriction. This nuance of "first productive use" is not identical to the Greek or Latin renderings.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders te'ares ("you will betroth", H0781) as λήμψῃ ("you will take"), and yishkavennah ("he will lie with her", H7901) as ἕξει αὐτήν ("he will have her"), both broader in scope than the Hebrew's specific verbs of betrothal and lying-with. The Vulgate's dormiat cum ea ("may sleep with her") stays closer to the Hebrew's physical verb. For the vineyard clause, the LXX uses τρυγήσεις ("you will harvest/gather grapes"), and the Vulgate vindemies ("you will gather the vintage"), where the Hebrew techallelennu (H2490) denotes the act of putting the vineyard to ordinary use rather than the specific act of harvesting.