Deuteronomy 7:20

Summary

Deuteronomy 7:20 states that Yehovah, the God of the addressee, will send tzir'ah ("hornet", H6880) against the remaining nations, continuing his action until those who remain and those who hide from the addressee perish. The verse closes a series of promises about the removal of populations from the land, adding the image of the hornet as an additional agent of that removal.

Key words

• tzir'ah ("hornet", H6880) — feminine singular noun with definite article, the object being sent; grammatically singular, describing what is dispatched.
• yeshallach ("he will send", H7971G) — piel imperfect, third person masculine singular; the piel stem intensifies the sending action, and the imperfect marks it as future/ongoing.
• 'a.Vod ("perish", H0006) — qal infinitive, functioning here after the preposition 'ad ("until", H5704) to mark the temporal endpoint of the hornet's action: "until perishing."
• nish'arim ("remain", H7604) — niphal participle, masculine plural with definite article, used substantively as "those who remain"; the niphal stem marks a passive/reflexive nuance, "those left remaining."
• nistarim ("hide themselves", H5641) — niphal participle, masculine plural with definite article, "those who hide themselves"; again niphal, showing the subjects as acting upon themselves (self-concealment) rather than being hidden by another.

What the text says

The sentence opens with the adverb gam ("also", H1571), signaling that this action supplements previously stated actions against the nations. The direct object tzir'ah is marked by the object particle 'et (H0853) and carries the definite article, indicating a specific, known entity — "the hornet" — rather than a generic reference. The verb yeshallach precedes its subject Yehovah 'Eloheikha ("Yehovah your God") in verb-subject-object order typical of Biblical Hebrew narrative and legal prose. The prepositional phrase bam ("among them", H9003+H9038) indicates the target group, previously identified nations, without further specification in this verse.

The temporal clause beginning with 'ad-'avod uses the qal infinitive 'avod, an intransitive verb describing simple perishing, without indicating a direct agent causing the death — the text states that they perish, not that someone destroys them directly within this clause. The two coordinated niphal participles, nish'arim and nistarim, both function as nominalized descriptions of two groups: those left remaining and those hiding, joined by ve ("and", H9002). The phrase concludes with mipaneikha ("from before you", H6440L + H9021), locating the hiding as occurring in relation to the addressee's presence.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew tzir'ah is singular and definite ("the hornet"), while the LXX gives the plural σφηκίας ("wasps/hornets") and the Vulgate likewise uses the plural crabrones ("hornets"). The Hebrew preposition bam ("among them") differs from the LXX εἰς αὐτούς ("against them" — with directional force). For the verb of perishing, the Hebrew 'avod (qal, intransitive "perish") contrasts with the LXX ἐκτριβῶσιν ("be utterly destroyed/rubbed out," passive-toned) and the Vulgate's deleat...disperdat ("he may destroy... and wipe out"), which explicitly supplies Dominus as the agent performing the destruction, a causative sense not present in the Hebrew infinitive construction.