Deuteronomy 5:14

Summary

The verse declares the seventh day a shabbat ("sabbath", H7676) belonging to Yehovah, prohibiting all work on it. It then lists every member of the household — sons, daughters, servants, animals, and the resident foreigner — who is included in this cessation, stating its purpose: that the servant and maidservant may rest as the householder does.

Key words

• Yom ("[the] day", H3117G) — construct singular noun, linked to ha-shevi'i ("the seventh", H7637) to form "the seventh day," marking a specific, ordinal day rather than a generic one.
• Shabbat ("[is] a sabbath", H7676) — feminine singular noun functioning predicatively; the day itself is identified as a "sabbath," not merely associated with one.
• Lo ta'aseh ("you must not do", H3808 + H6213A) — negation with qal imperfect, giving an ongoing/future prohibition addressed to a single male "you," the grammatical anchor of the whole list of exempted persons and animals.
• Lema'an ("so that", H4616) — subordinating particle introducing purpose, connecting the prohibition of work to its stated goal.
• Yanuach ("he may rest", H5117) — qal jussive, expressing a wished-for or mandated state ("let him rest") rather than a simple future, applied to the servant and maidservant.
• Kamokha ("like you", H3644G + H9031) — preposition with second-person suffix, explicitly equating the rest granted to the servant with that of the addressee.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence opens with ve-yom ha-shevi'i shabbat la-Yehovah Eloheikha — a nominal clause without a copula verb, where "the seventh day" is grammatically identified as "a sabbath for Yehovah your God." The construct chain Eloheikha ("your God", H0430G + H9021) ties the divine name to the addressee directly, a form maintained repeatedly through the second-person suffixes (-kha) attached to every noun in the list that follows: bin-kha ("your son"), bit-kha ("your daughter"), avde-kha ("your servant"), and so on. This chain of possessive suffixes creates a structural rhythm binding each dependent — human or animal — to the "you" of the prohibition in verse 11.

The core prohibition, lo ta'aseh khol-melakhah ("you must not do any work", H3808 + H6213A + H3605 + H4399), uses the qal imperfect to express a durative command rather than a single instance. The list that follows — son, daughter, male and female servant, ox, donkey, all livestock, and the sojourner (ger, H1616) "who is in your gates" — extends the scope of the prohibition to every dependent under the addressee's authority. The clause closes with a purpose statement introduced by lema'an ("so that", H4616), followed by the jussive yanuach ("he may rest", H5117), specifying that the male and female servant benefit from rest "like you" (kamokha, H3644G + H9031) — an explicit grammatical equivalence between the addressee's rest and that of the servant class.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders lema'an yanuach with a purpose clause introduced by an explanatory γάρ-based addition referencing the six days of creation, material not present in the Hebrew word list given here. The Vulgate glosses shabbat as "requies Domini Dei tui" ("rest of the Lord your God"), interpreting the noun shabbat through the concept of rest rather than transliterating it, where the Hebrew simply states the day "is a sabbath."