Deuteronomy 25:14

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

You shall not have in your house diverse measures, a great and a small.

World English Bible · Public Domain

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אֵיפָ֣ה

ʼêyphâh

H374

“ephah”

Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Absolute

Appears 40× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears at Exodus 16:36

Full BDB Definition

Origin: of Egyptian derivation

TWOT: 82

ephah - a dry measure of quantity, equal to 3 seahs, 10 omers; the same as the liquid measure bath; (about 9 imperial gallons (40 liters), rabbinical writings give sizes of one-half this amount) - the receptacle for measuring or holding that amount

About this verse

These counts appear in no published source. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged text and Lemma’s own curated glosses. What Lemma adds →

8: words
6: distinct lemmas
Pentateuch: section

Shared distinctive vocabulary

אֵיפָ֣ה ephah H374 occurs in 29 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:

Grammatical profile

1 verb
3 nouns
2 adjectives
1 preposition
1 particle

Verb forms

יִהְיֶ֥ה Qal · Imperfect

Repetition

A word recurs within this verse — often emphatic in Hebrew:

אֵיפָ֣ה ephah H374 ×2

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 14 words from the Hebrew and 14 from the Septuagint (LXX English) — the same length.

A rough comparison of the two English renderings, which tokenize alike — not a word-level alignment.

Word counts can differ between the Hebrew and the Greek without any difference in meaning — e.g. the Hebrew direct-object marker אֵת has no separate Greek word, and Greek often adds the article ὁ.

In the original languages it is 8 Hebrew tokens and 12 Greek tokens — but the two are counted differently (Hebrew bundles its prefixes and suffixes into one token; the Greek is in lemma form), so that isn’t a like-for-like length.

Hebrew and Greek witnesses Masoretic Hebrew ↔ Greek Septuagint

The same verse in the two great witnesses to the Old Testament, shown verse-for-verse.

These are two independent witnesses, not word-aligned to each other, and the Septuagint is shown in lemma (dictionary) form.

Hebrew Deuteronomy 25:14 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

לֹא יִהְיֶ֥ה לְךָ֛ בְּבֵיתְךָ֖ אֵיפָ֣ה וְאֵיפָ֑ה גְּדוֹלָ֖ה וּקְטַנָּֽה

You shall not have in your house diverse measures, a great and a small.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX Deuteronomy 25:14 Septuagint · lemma form

οὐ εἰμί ἐν ὁ οἰκία σύ μέτρον καί μέτρον μέγας ἤ μικρός

You shall not have in your house various measures, a great and a small.

LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) · Public Domain

Hebrew: Westminster Leningrad Codex (CC BY 4.0). Greek: Septuagint (public domain); English from LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) (Public Domain). How the Septuagint differs from the Hebrew →

Targum (Aramaic paraphrase)

The Targum is the ancient Jewish Aramaic paraphrase of the Hebrew Scriptures — an interpretive translation, not the Hebrew text itself. Onkelos (literal) and Pseudo-Jonathan (expansive) render the Torah, and Jonathan the Prophets. Coverage is partial: where no permissively-licensed English translation exists for a verse, only the Aramaic is shown. This is verse-level text, not a word-by-word alignment to the Hebrew.

Targum Onkelos Torah (Genesis–Deuteronomy)

לָא יְהֵי לָךְ בְּבֵיתָךְ מְכִילָא וּמְכִילָא רַבְּתָא וּזְעֶרְתָּא

(no public-domain English translation for this verse)

Targum Onkelos — Aramaic: “Onkelos Genesis” (public domain); “Onkelos Exodus” (public domain); “Onkelos Leviticus” (public domain); “Onkelos Numbers” (public domain); “Onkelos Deuteronomy” (public domain). English: “Sefaria Community Translation” (CC0 1.0 (public-domain dedication)); “J.W. Etheridge. The Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan Ben Uzziel on the Pentateuch. London: Longmans, Green, 1862” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan Torah (Genesis–Deuteronomy)

לָא יֶהֱוֵי לְכוֹן בְּבָתֵּיכוֹן מְכִילַן דִּנְכִיל מְכִילַן רַבְרְבִין לְמֶהֱוֵי זַבִּין בְּהוֹן וּמְכִילַן זְעִירִין לְמֶהֱוֵי מְזַבִּין בְּהוֹן

Nor shall you have in your houses measures that deceive; great measures to buy with, and less measures to sell with.

Targum Pseudo-Jonathan — Aramaic: “Targum Jonathan on Genesis” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Exodus” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Leviticus” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Numbers” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Deuteronomy” (public domain). English: “The Targum of Jonathan ben Uzziel, trans. J. W. Etheridge, London, 1862” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.

Commentary

Notes on Deuteronomy 25:14 from classic Christian and Jewish commentators (each source and its license shown beneath its notes). The classic Christian expositions comment on the surrounding passage and are grouped to its opening verse, so a note may address several verses; the Jewish commentaries on the Tanakh (Rashi and others) are per-verse, so they appear only where the commentator wrote on this verse.

Lemma curates 59 commentaries, every one of them public domain or Creative Commons licensed, each selected and text-cleaned for this edition rather than reprinted as found. About our sources →

Geneva Bible (1599)

Geneva Bible translators

Hebrew, Ephah and Ephah, read Exod. 12:6.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

Adam Clarke's Commentary

Verse 14. Divers measures] Literally, an ephah and an ephah; one large, to buy thy neighbour's wares, another small, to sell thy own by. So there were knaves in all ages, and among all nations. See Clarke on Ex 16:16, and See Clarke on Le 19:35.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne

14. divers measures] Lit. an ephah and an ephah; the ephah = 8.005 gallons.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

John Gill's Exposition

Thou shall not have in thine house divers, measures,.... Or, "an ephah and an ephah"; which was one sort of measure in use with the Jews, and held above a bushel; and is put for all others, which should be alike, and not

a great and a small; one to buy with, and another to sell by, as before observed; which would be to cheat both seller and buyer in their turns; see Amo 8:5.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Whedon's Commentary on the Bible

Daniel D. Whedon

14. Divers measures — An ephah and an ephah is the Hebrew. The prohibition is to condemn the having one kind of weight and measure for buying and another for selling.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Rashi

Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki (Rashi)

לא יהיה לך THOU SHALT NOT HAVE — This suggests: if YOU do so (if you have false weights), לא יהיה לך you will have nothing (you will become impoverished, being deprived of your property, as you have deprived others of theirs) (cf. Sifrei Devarim 294:3).

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.

Lesson kit

Teaching starters — assembled from the data on this page, not authored interpretation. Every prompt links to the verse data it draws on. Edit before teaching.

Deuteronomy, in the Pentateuch, opens this verse with 8 words (6 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is ʼêyphâh (“ephah”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

What does “ephah” (ʼêyphâh) contribute to the verse as a whole?
How does Exodus 16:36, which shares the word «ephah», read alongside this verse?
What does the repetition of “ephah” (2× in this one verse) do in this verse?
The translations on this page render this verse differently — a whole-verse word diff, not a word-by-word alignment. What might account for the different wordings?
«יִהְיֶ֥ה» is a Qal Imperfect verb. How does that grammatical form shape the action described?
Compare how Geneva Bible (1599) and Adam Clarke's Commentary read this verse. Where do they agree or differ?

Things to notice

This verse counts 8 Hebrew ↔ 12 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 8 words in this verse.
“ephah” occurs 2× in this single verse.
6 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 8 words in this verse.