Deuteronomy 4:28

וַעֲבַדְתֶּם־שָׁם אֱלֹהִים מַעֲשֵׂה יְדֵי אָדָם עֵץ וָאֶבֶן אֲשֶׁר לֹֽא־יִרְאוּן וְלֹא יִשְׁמְעוּן וְלֹא יֹֽאכְלוּן וְלֹא יְרִיחֻֽן׃

✦ Hebrew interlinear

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✦ The same verse in five languages

Hebrew

וַעֲבַדְתֶּם־שָׁ֣ם אֱלֹהִ֔ים מַעֲשֵׂ֖ה יְדֵ֣י אָדָ֑ם עֵ֣ץ וָאֶ֔בֶן אֲשֶׁ֤ר לֹֽא־יִרְאוּן֙ וְלֹ֣א יִשְׁמְע֔וּן וְלֹ֥א יֹֽאכְל֖וּן וְלֹ֥א יְרִיחֻֽן׃

Greek (Septuagint)

καὶ λατρεύσετε ἐκεῖ θεοῖς ἑτέροις, ἔργοις χειρῶν ἀνθρώπων, ξύλοις καὶ λίθοις, οἳ οὐκ ὄψονται οὔτε μὴ ἀκούσωσιν οὔτε μὴ φάγωσιν οὔτε μὴ ὀσφρανθῶσιν.

Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0

Latin (Vulgate)

Ibique servietis diis, qui hominum manu fabricati sunt, ligno et lapidi qui non vident, nec audiunt, nec comedunt, nec odorantur.

Spanish

Allí servirán a dioses, obra de manos de hombres, madera y piedra, que no ven, ni oyen, ni comen, ni huelen.

Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)

Y serviréis allí á dioses hechos de manos de hombres, á madera y á piedra, que no ven, ni oyen, ni comen, ni huelen.

English

And there you will serve man-made gods of wood and stone, which cannot see or hear or eat or smell.

✦ What the text says

Summary

Deuteronomy 4:28 describes a future condition in which the people will serve, in exile, deities that are merely the manufactured product of human hands — objects of wood and stone incapable of the basic sensory functions of seeing, hearing, eating, or smelling.

Key words

'a.vad.tem ("you will serve", H5647H) — qal sequential perfect, continuing the narrative chain begun in prior verses; grammatically it projects a future consequence following from what precedes.
ma.'a.Seh ("[the] work of", H4639G) — construct singular noun, linking directly to ye.Dei to form "work of the hands," identifying the 'E.lo.Him ("gods", H0430J) as products rather than independent beings.
ye.Dei ("[the] hands of", H3027G) — dual construct form, specifying the paired hands of a human as the origin of the objects.
yir.'U ("they see", H7200G) plus paragogic n (H9013) — qal imperfect with the emphatic paragogic nun repeated across all four verbs (yir.'U, yish.me.'U, yokh.Lu, ye.ri.Chu), each negated by lo' ("not", H3808), stressing the total absence of these faculties.
ye.ri.Chu ("they smell", H7306) — hiphil (causative) imperfect, the only causative-stem verb among the four negated actions, describing the capacity to produce or perceive smell.

What the text says

The verse opens with a narrative vav attached to 'a.vad.tem, showing this clause as a direct continuation of the sequence of events described earlier in the chapter: the people "will serve" ('a.vad.tem) "there" (sham, H8033G). The object of this service is 'E.lo.Him ("gods"), immediately qualified by the construct chain ma.'a.Seh yedei 'adam — "work of the hands of a human" (H0120G) — which defines these gods entirely by their manufactured origin rather than by any independent status. The materials are then specified in apposition: 'etz ("wood", H6086G) and 'even ("stone", H0068G).

The relative clause introduced by 'a.Sher ("which", H0834A) attaches four qal/hiphil imperfect verbs, each preceded by the negation lo' and each carrying the paragogic nun ending. This repeated grammatical pattern — negation plus imperfect plus emphatic nun — creates a rhythmic, four-fold denial of sensory capacity: they do not see, do not hear, do not eat, do not smell. The paragogic nun does not change the basic meaning of "they will [verb]" but adds a formal, heightened tone to each denial, reinforcing the description through repetition of structure rather than through added vocabulary.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew 'E.lo.Him ("gods") is rendered in the LXX as θεοῖς ἑτέροις ("other gods"), adding the qualifier "other" that has no corresponding word in the Hebrew text given here. The Vulgate omits sham ("there") as a separate temporal-locative element folded into "ibique," and translates the construct phrase ma.'a.Seh yedei 'adam somewhat more loosely as "qui hominum manu fabricati sunt" ("who are fabricated by human hand"), turning the Hebrew noun-construct chain into a relative clause. The four-fold negated verb sequence with paragogic nun in Hebrew is rendered in Greek with οὔτε μὴ plus subjunctive forms, and in Latin with simple negated indicatives (nec vident, nec audiunt, nec comedunt, nec odorantur), neither of which reproduces the repeated emphatic ending found in the Hebrew verbs.

This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.