Deuteronomy 28:38

Summary

Deuteronomy 28:38 describes a farmer who takes abundant seed out to the field but gathers only a small harvest, because locusts will consume the crop. The verse contrasts the quantity sown with the quantity reaped, attributing the loss to the locust.

Key words

• Zera' ("seed", H2233G) — masculine singular noun, the direct object of sowing, paired with rav ("much", H7227A) to emphasize abundance at the start.
• toTzi' ("you will take out", H3318H) — Hiphil (causative) imperfect, second person masculine; the causative stem indicates the farmer actively brings the seed out to the field, not merely that seed appears there.
• te'eSof ("you will gather", H0622) — Qal (simple) imperfect, second person masculine; contrasts with the causative verb above by describing a simple, non-causative act of collecting.
• yachseLennu ("it will consume", H2628 + suffix H9033) — Qal imperfect third person masculine with a pronominal suffix "it," meaning the locust's action directly consumes the object referred to (the harvest/seed).
• 'arBeh ("locust[s]", H0697) — masculine singular noun with definite article ha (H9009), identifying a specific, known agent of destruction.

What the text says

The verse is built on two parallel clauses joined by ki ("for/that", H3588A), which introduces the causal explanation. The first clause, zera' rav toTzi' hasSadeh ("much seed you will take out, the field"), uses the Hiphil verb toTzi' to describe the farmer's deliberate action of bringing seed out to the field — the causative stem stresses agency in the sowing process. The second clause, u-me'At te'eSof ("and little you will gather"), uses the simple Qal stem te'eSof, describing the resulting harvest without the same causative emphasis; the shift from Hiphil to Qal mirrors the shift from active effort (sowing) to a diminished, almost passive result (gathering little).

The explanatory clause introduced by ki identifies the cause of the disproportion: yachseLennu ha'arBeh ("the locust will consume it"). The verb yachseLennu carries a third-person masculine suffix -nu referring back to the harvest or the seed's yield, and the subject is ha'arBeh, "the locust," marked with the definite article, presenting the locust as the specific, expected agent of destruction in this scenario. The grammatical structure — abundance verb, then diminishment verb, then causal explanation — creates a before-and-after contrast that highlights the futility of the sowing effort due to the locust's action.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the first verb as ἐξοίσεις ("you will bring out") followed by εἰς τὸ πεδίον ("into the field"), making the field a directional object rather than the grammatical subject as in the Hebrew toTzi' hasSadeh. The LXX also renders te'eSof as εἰσοίσεις ("you will bring in"), a verb of motion rather than the Hebrew's more general "gather." The Vulgate's devorabunt omnia ("they will devour everything") pluralizes "locusts" (locustae) and adds omnia ("everything"), an emphasis not explicit in the Hebrew singular ha'arBeh with its suffixed object -nu ("it").