Deuteronomy 28:34

Summary

The verse states that the person addressed will be driven mad by the things his own eyes witness. It is part of a sequence of curses continuing from the preceding verses, describing a mental/emotional breakdown caused by visual experience.

Key words

• ha.Yi.ta ("you will be", H1961) — qal sequential perfect, continuing the chain of future consequences begun earlier in the passage.
• me.shu.Ga' ("driven mad", H7696) — pual passive participle, indicating the subject undergoes the action of being made mad rather than causing it himself.
• mar.'Eh ("sight of", H4758) — masculine singular construct noun, linking grammatically to what follows ("eyes") to form "sight of your eyes."
• 'ei.Nei.kha ("your eyes", H5869A + H9021) — feminine dual construct noun with second-person masculine suffix, marking the organ of perception as belonging to "you."
• tir.'Eh ("you will see", H7200G) — qal imperfect, denoting an action not yet completed or ongoing, describing what the eyes will witness.

What the text says

The sentence opens with the narrative vav ve ("and", H9001) attached to ha.Yi.ta ("you will be", H1961), signaling continuation from prior clauses in a series of predicted conditions. The core verb me.shu.Ga' ("driven mad", H7696) is a pual (intensive passive) participle: grammatically, this marks the subject as the recipient of an intensified action of madness, not the agent producing it. The cause of this state is introduced by the preposition mi ("from", H9006) followed by the construct chain mar.'Eh ("sight of", H4758) + 'ei.Nei.kha ("your eyes", H5869A construct + H9021 suffix), literally "from [the] sight of your eyes." This construct chain ties the abstract noun "sight" directly to the physical organ "eyes," producing an expression close to "what your eyes see."

The relative clause introduced by 'a.Sher ("which", H0834A) attaches to this noun phrase and is completed by tir.'Eh ("you will see", H7200G), a qal imperfect verb denoting future or ongoing visual perception. Structurally, the Hebrew builds a chain: state of being (madness) ← caused by ← sight of eyes ← which will be seen. This layered construct-plus-relative-clause structure allows the Hebrew to express both the visual experience and its resulting psychological effect within a single compact sentence, a nuance that requires more words in translation.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders me.shu.Ga' ("driven mad", H7696) with παράπληκτος ("deranged/mad"), matching the Hebrew's passive sense of affliction. The Vulgate uses stupens ("stupefied/astonished") "ad terrorem" ("at the terror of"), introducing the concept of "terror" not explicitly present in the Hebrew text, which speaks only of "sight" (mar.'Eh, H4758) without specifying an emotional quality such as fear.