Exodus 23:29

Summary

The verse gives the reason why the driving out of the inhabitants of the land will not happen in a single year: if it did, the land would become desolate and wild animals would multiply against the addressee. It presents a divine statement of restraint followed by two negative consequences to be avoided.

Key words

• 'agareshennu ("I will drive out", H1644G) — Piel imperfect, first person, with pronominal suffix "it/him" (H9033); the Piel stem intensifies the action of expulsion, and the imperfect marks it as future/ongoing.
• pen ("lest", H6435) — subordinating particle introducing a negative purpose clause; governs both following verbs (tihyeh and rabbah), setting up the two feared outcomes.
• tihyeh ("it should become", H1961) — Qal imperfect, third person feminine, agreeing with ha'aretz ("the land", H0776G); expresses a potential future state to be prevented.
• rabbah ("it will become many", H7231) — Qal sequential perfect, third person feminine; continues the pen clause begun by tihyeh, describing the second consequence in sequence with the first.
• chayyat hassadeh ("animal of the field", H2416C + H7704I) — construct chain, literally "animal of the field," functioning as a collective singular for wild animals as a class.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence opens with a negated first-person verb, lo' 'agareshennu ("I will not drive it out"), where the object suffix -nu ("it/him", H9033) refers back to an antecedent outside this verse (the nations previously mentioned in the passage). The time frame is marked by besh anah 'echat ("in one year"), a prepositional phrase with the numeral 'echat ("one", H0259) in feminine form agreeing with shanah ("year", H8141).

The second half is structured by the particle pen ("lest"), which introduces two coordinated negative results the speaker seeks to avoid. The first, tihyeh ha'aretz shemamah ("the land would become a waste"), uses a Qal imperfect verb agreeing with the feminine noun 'aretz ("land", H0776G). The second clause, joined by the narrative vav on rabbah ("it will become many", H7231), switches to a sequential perfect form — a common construction in Biblical Hebrew where a perfect verb continues the temporal or logical sequence set up by a preceding imperfect. The subject of rabbah is delayed to the end of the clause, chayyat hassadeh ("animal of the field", H2416C construct + H7704I), a construct phrase functioning as a collective noun for wild animals rather than a plural form.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the pronominal suffix in 'agareshennu as a plural, αὐτούς ("them"), where the Hebrew -nu suffix (H9033) is grammatically singular ("it/him"). The Vulgate follows the LXX's plural reading with eos ("them"). The Hebrew chayyat hassadeh ("animal of the field", singular construct) is rendered as plural in both the LXX (τὰ θηρία, "the wild beasts") and the Vulgate (bestiae, "beasts"), and the Vulgate omits an explicit equivalent for hassadeh ("of the field", H7704I), rendering only "beasts" without a "field" qualifier.