Exodus 20:7

Summary

The verse prohibits taking the name of YHWH ("Yehovah", H3068) la-Shav' ("for emptiness/in vain", H7723) and states the consequence: YHWH will not treat as innocent (yenaqeh, "he will leave unpunished", H5352) anyone who does so. The sentence pairs a direct prohibition with a causal clause explaining the reason for it.

Key words

• ti.Sa' ("you must take", H5375) — qal imperfect, 2nd person masculine singular; the imperfect aspect marks an ongoing or repeated prohibition rather than a single instant.
• Shav' ("emptiness", H7723) — masculine singular noun, appearing twice (lines 9 and 21), each time preceded by la- ("for/in the", H9005), forming the phrase "for emptiness."
• ye.na.Keh ("he will leave unpunished", H5352) — piel imperfect, 3rd masculine singular; the piel stem intensifies the basic sense of "being clean/innocent," here meaning to declare or treat as guiltless.
• shem ("name of", H8034) — masculine singular construct noun, appearing twice, each time bound to what follows (YHWH in the first clause, the pronominal suffix -o "his" in the second).
• 'a.Sher ("who/that", H0834) — relative particle introducing the clause that identifies the subject of the second yiSa' ("he will take", H5375), linking the punishment clause back to the person who commits the act described in the first clause.

What the text says

The verse is built as two parallel clauses sharing the same verbal root nasa' (H5375, "to take/lift"), first as a direct prohibition (lo' tiSa', "you shall not take") and then, in the second clause, as a participant description (yiSa', "he will take") introduced by the relative particle 'asher. This repetition creates a structural link: the person addressed in the prohibition and the person subject to non-acquittal in the consequence clause are described with the identical verb, differing only in grammatical person.

Both occurrences of the object — "the name" (shem, H8034) — are followed by the same prepositional phrase la-Shav' ("for emptiness," H7723), first attached to "the name of Yehovah your God" and second to "his name" (referring back to Yehovah via the suffix -o, H9023). The noun Shav' itself denotes emptiness or worthlessness; the preposition la- indicates purpose or manner ("for/toward emptiness"), so the phrase describes the manner in which the name is invoked rather than specifying a particular kind of prohibited act beyond that manner.

The causal particle ki (H3588) introduces the second clause as the grounds for the prohibition: because Yehovah (repeated as subject, H3068) lo' yenaqeh ("will not leave unpunished/clean," H5352, piel), i.e., will not treat the offender as innocent. The piel form of naqah here carries a declarative-intensive nuance, "to pronounce/treat as clean," negated to mean the opposite — non-acquittal.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders yenaqeh ("he will leave unpunished," H5352) with καθαρίσῃ ("cleanse/purify"), preceded by οὐ γὰρ μή, a strong double negation not morphologically present in the Hebrew lo' alone. The Vulgate uses "habebit insontem" ("will hold [him] innocent"), closer to the Hebrew's forensic sense of acquittal than the LXX's "cleanse" language. The Hebrew Shav' ("emptiness," H7723) is translated by the LXX as ματαίῳ ("vain, futile") and by the Vulgate as "vanum"/"frustra," both converging on the notion of futility rather than the more literal "emptiness" of the Hebrew root.