Deuteronomy 28:44

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

He shall lend to you, and you shall not lend to him: he shall be the head, and you shall be the tail.

World English Bible · Public Domain

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Word by word

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לְזָנָֽב

zânâb

H2180

“to/for · tail”

Preposition + Noun, Common, Masculine, Singular, Absolute

Appears 11× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears at Exodus 4:4

Full BDB Definition

Origin: from H2179 (in the original sense of flapping)

TWOT: 562a

tail, end, stump

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 →

11: words
7: distinct lemmas
Pentateuch: section

Notable vocabulary

The rarest word here is לְזָנָֽב tail H2180 — appearing just 11 times in the whole Hebrew Bible.

Shared distinctive vocabulary

לְזָנָֽב tail H2180 occurs in 9 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:

Grammatical profile

4 verbs
2 nouns
4 pronouns
1 particle

Verb forms

יַלְוְךָ֔ Hiphil · Imperfect
תַלְוֶ֑נּוּ Hiphil · Imperfect
יִהְיֶ֣ה Qal · Imperfect
תִּֽהְיֶ֥ה Qal · Imperfect

Repetition

Words recur within this verse — often emphatic in Hebrew:

יַלְוְךָ֔ to join H3867 ×2
יִהְיֶ֣ה to be H1961 ×2
ה֣וּא he H1931 ×2
וְאַתָּ֖ה you H859 ×2

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 23 words from the Hebrew and 23 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 11 Hebrew tokens and 15 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.

Cross-references

Topical passages linked to Deuteronomy 28:44 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.

Deuteronomy 28:12–13 Yahweh will open to you his good treasure in the sky, to give the rain of your land in its season, and to bless all the work of your hand: and you shall lend to many nations, and you shall not borrow.
Lamentations 1:5 Her adversaries are become the head, her enemies prosper; For Yahweh has afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions: Her young children are gone into captivity before the adversary.

Cross-references courtesy of OpenBible.info (CC BY 4.0).

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 28:44 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

ה֣וּא יַלְוְךָ֔ וְאַתָּ֖ה לֹ֣א תַלְוֶ֑נּוּ ה֚וּא יִהְיֶ֣ה לְרֹ֔אשׁ וְאַתָּ֖ה תִּֽהְיֶ֥ה לְזָנָֽב

He shall lend to you, and you shall not lend to him: he shall be the head, and you shall be the tail.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX Deuteronomy 28:44 Septuagint · lemma form

οὗτος δανείζω σύ σύ δέ οὗτος οὐ δανείζω οὗτος εἰμί κεφαλή σύ δέ εἰμί οὐρά

He shall lend to you, and you shall not lend to him: he shall be the head, and you shall be the tail.

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)

הוּא יוֹזְפִנָךְ וְאַתְּ לָא תוֹזְפִנֵהּ הוּא יְהֵי לְתַקִיף וְאַתְּ תְּהֵי לְחַלָשׁ

(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)

הוּא יַזְפוּנְכוֹן וְאַתּוּן לָא תוֹזְפוּן לְהוֹן הוּא יֶהֱוֵי שַׁלִיט וְאַתּוּן תֶּהֱווֹן הֶדְיוֹטִין

He will lend to you, but you will not lend to him; he will be the master, and you the servant.

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 28:44 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 →

Tyndale Open Study Notes

Tyndale Open Resources

28:44 the head . . . the tail: Rather than Israel’s leading the nations, the reverse would be true when God punishes his people (see 28:13).

John Gill's Exposition

Therefore shall thou serve thine enemies, which the Lord shall send against thee,.... Since they would not serve the Lord their God, who was so good a master to them, and supplied them with all good things, and with plenty of them, they should serve other lords, their enemies, whom God would raise up and send against them; not only, the Assyrians, Chaldeans, and Babylonians, but the Romans, after described, whom they should find hard masters, and from whom they; should have very severe usage, and should be

in hunger and in thirst, and in nakedness, and in want of all good things; being destitute of food, and drink and raiment, and the common necessaries of life, and so in famishing and starving circumstances:

and he shall put a yoke of iron upon thy neck; bring them into a state of subjection to their enemies, which would be intolerable to them, and from which they would not be able to free themselves, any more than to break an iron yoke; which, as it agrees with the Babylonish captivity, and their subjection in that state, see Jer 28:13; so more especially with their bondage under the Romans, who are the legs of iron in Nebuchadnezzar's image, and the fourth beast with great iron teeth in Daniel's vision, Dan 2:33, and this yoke was to continue

until he have destroyed thee; the Jews were under the Roman yoke, Roman governors being set over them, and Judea made a Roman province many years before the destruction of their nation, city, and temple, by them.

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

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 11 words (7 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is zânâb (“tail”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

The word zânâb carries the sense “tail.” How does it shape the verse?
How does Exodus 4:4, which shares the word «tail», read alongside this verse?
What does the repetition of “to join” (2× in this one verse) do in this verse?
These translations render this verse differently; the difference is in the English rendering, not the original. What questions does that raise?
«יַלְוְךָ֔» is a Hiphil Imperfect verb. How does that grammatical form shape the action described?
Compare how Tyndale Open Study Notes and John Gill's Exposition read this verse. Where do they agree or differ?

Things to notice

This verse counts 11 Hebrew ↔ 15 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 3 words in this verse.
“to join” occurs 2× in this single verse.
7 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 11 words in this verse.