Exodus 34:13
כִּי אֶת־מִזְבְּחֹתָם תִּתֹּצוּן וְאֶת־מַצֵּבֹתָם תְּשַׁבֵּרוּן וְאֶת־אֲשֵׁרָיו תִּכְרֹתֽוּן׃
✦ Hebrew interlinear
Tap a word to see its entry
✦ The same verse in five languages
כִּ֤י אֶת־מִזְבְּחֹתָם֙ תִּתֹּצ֔וּן וְאֶת־מַצֵּבֹתָ֖ם תְּשַׁבֵּר֑וּן וְאֶת־אֲשֵׁרָ֖יו תִּכְרֹתֽוּן׃
τοὺς βωμοὺς αὐτῶν καθελεῖτε, καὶ τὰς στήλας αὐτῶν συντρίψετε, καὶ τὰ ἄλση αὐτῶν ἐκκόψετε, καὶ τὰ γλυπτὰ τῶν θεῶν αὐτῶν κατακαύσετε ἐν πυρί.
Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0
Latin (Vulgate)
sed aras eorum destrue, confringe statuas, lucosque succide:
Al contrario, derrumben sus altares, hagan pedazos sus piedras sagradas y corten sus imágenes de la diosa Asera.
Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)
Mas derribaréis sus altares, y quebraréis sus estatuas, y talaréis sus bosques:
Rather, you must tear down their altars, smash their sacred stones, and chop down their Asherah poles.
✦ What the text says
Summary
Exodus 34:13 commands the destruction of three categories of Canaanite cultic objects: altars, sacred pillars, and Asherah poles. The verse uses three parallel verb forms, each with an emphatic ending, to stress the totality of this demolition.
Key words
- mizbechotam ("their altars", H4196) — feminine plural construct noun with 3rd person masculine plural suffix ("their"), referring to sacrificial altars.
- titTotzun ("you will pull down", H5422) — qal imperfect, 2nd person masculine plural, with paragogic nun (H9013), an archaic/emphatic ending reinforcing the force of the command.
- matzevotam ("their sacred pillars", H4676) — feminine plural construct noun with suffix "their", denoting standing stone pillars used in cultic contexts.
- teshaberun ("you will break down", H7665) — piel (intensive) imperfect, 2nd person masculine plural, again with paragogic nun; the piel stem intensifies the plain sense of "breaking" found in the qal.
- asherav ("Asherah poles", H0842) — masculine plural construct noun with 3rd person masculine singular suffix ("its"), referring to wooden cultic objects associated with the deity Asherah.
What the text says
The verse is structured as three parallel clauses, each following the pattern: object marker + noun (with 3rd person suffix, "their/its") + verb in imperfect with paragogic nun. The particle ki (H3588A) functions here as a conditional or contrastive connector, setting up this instruction in relation to the preceding context. Each clause places the direct object first (marked by 'et, H0853, which itself carries no independent meaning but signals the following noun as the object), giving prominence to what is to be destroyed before naming the action performed on it.
The three verbs — titTotzun (qal, "pull down"), teshaberun (piel, "break down"), and tikhroTun ("cut down", H3772G, qal) — show a shift in stem for the middle verb: while the first and third are qal (simple action), the second is piel, an intensive stem, which in Biblical Hebrew grammar typically marks a more thorough or forceful version of the action denoted by the qal root of the same verb. All three verbs carry the paragogic nun ending, a form found in poetic or emphatic contexts that does not change the meaning but adds a rhetorical weight to the imperfect. The suffix on asherav ("its Asherah poles") is grammatically singular masculine ("his/its"), differing from the plural "their" suffixes on the previous two nouns, though the referent (the Canaanite inhabitants or their gods, per the wider context) is not specified within this verse's data.
Differences between versions
The LXX adds a fourth clause absent from the Hebrew text of this verse: "the carved images of their gods you will burn with fire" (τὰ γλυπτὰ τῶν θεῶν αὐτῶν κατακαύσετε ἐν πυρί), which has no corresponding Hebrew wording in the data provided. The Vulgate follows the three-part structure of the Hebrew (aras, statuas, lucos) without this addition.
This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.