There you shall serve gods, the work of men's hands, wood and stone, which neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell.
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The same verse in 3 English versions, stacked beneath the original-language interlinear above. Click any original word for its lexicon entry.
Each is an independent rendering of the whole verse — the interlinear is not word-aligned to these translations.
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There you shall serve gods, the work of men's hands, wood and stone, which neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell.
And there ye shall serve gods, the work of men's hands, wood and stone, which neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell.
And there you will serve gods, the work of the hands of man, wood and stone, which do not see and do not hear and do not eat and do not smell.
unfoldingWord Literal Text — © unfoldingWord, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Word-aligned USFM3 via Door43 (git.door43.org/unfoldingWord/en_ult).
Every available English version of this verse, each an independent rendering of the whole verse.
There you shall serve gods, the work of men's hands, wood and stone, which neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell.
And there you will serve man-made gods of wood and stone, which cannot see or hear or eat or smell.
And there you will serve man-made gods of wood and stone, which cannot see or hear or eat or smell.
And there ye shall serve gods, the work of men's hands, wood and stone, which neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell.
And there ye shall serve gods, the work of men's hands, wood and stone, which neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell.
And there ye shall serve gods, the work of men’s hands, wood and stone, which neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell.
And there ye shall serue gods, euen ye worke of mans hand, wood, and stone, which neither see, nor heare, nor eate, nor smelll.
And there you shah serve gods, that were framed with men's hands: wood and stone, that neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell.
and ye have served there gods, work of man's hands, wood and stone, which see not, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell.
and you have served gods there, work of man’s hands, wood and stone, which do not see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell.
There you will serve other gods, the work of men's hands, wood and stone, which neither see, hear, eat, nor smell.
And there you will serve gods, the work of the hands of man, wood and stone, which do not see and do not hear and do not eat and do not smell.
And ye shall there serve gods, the work of men's hands, wood and stone, which neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell.
There you will serve gods, the work of men’s hands, wood and stone, which neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell.
And there ye shall serve gods, the work of men's hands, wood and stone, which neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell.
There you will worship gods of wood and stone made by human beings. These idols can't see or hear or eat or smell.
There you will be the servants of gods, made by men's hands, of wood and stone, having no power of seeing or hearing or taking food or smelling.
And there ye shall serve gods, the work of men's hands, wood and stone, which neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell.
Literal Standard Version (2020), Covenant Press — licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API (eBible.org). Unlocked Literal Bible (unfoldingWord) — licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API (eBible.org). unfoldingWord Literal Text — © unfoldingWord, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Word-aligned USFM3 via Door43 (git.door43.org/unfoldingWord/en_ult). Free Bible Version, Dr. Jonathan Gallagher — licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API (eBible.org).
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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 →
Notable vocabulary
The rarest word here is יְרִיחֻֽן to smell H7306 — appearing just 11 times in the whole Hebrew Bible.
Shared distinctive vocabulary
יְרִיחֻֽן to smell H7306 occurs in 11 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:
Grammatical profile
Verb forms
Repetition
A word recurs within this verse — often emphatic in Hebrew:
Hebrew & Septuagint length
In English translation the verse runs 22 words from the Hebrew and 28 from the Septuagint (LXX English) — closely comparable.
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 17 Hebrew tokens and 23 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.
Topical passages linked to Deuteronomy 4:28 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.
Cross-references courtesy of OpenBible.info (CC BY 4.0).
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.
וַעֲבַדְתֶּם שָׁ֣ם אֱלֹהִ֔ים מַעֲשֵׂ֖ה יְדֵ֣י אָדָ֑ם עֵ֣ץ וָאֶ֔בֶן אֲשֶׁ֤ר לֹֽא יִרְאוּן֙ וְלֹ֣א יִשְׁמְע֔וּן וְלֹ֥א יֹֽאכְל֖וּן וְלֹ֥א יְרִיחֻֽן
There you shall serve gods, the work of men's hands, wood and stone, which neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell.
World English Bible · Public Domain
καί λατρεύω ἐκεῖ θεός ἕτερος ἔργον χείρ ἄνθρωπος ξύλον καί λίθος ὅς οὐ ὁράω οὐδέ μή ἀκούω οὔτε μή ἐσθίω οὔτε μή ὀσφραίνομαι
And you⌃ shall there serve other gods, the works of the hands of men, wood and stones, which can’t see, nor can they hear, nor eat, nor smell.
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 →
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.
וְתִפְלְחוּן תַּמָן לְעַמְמַיָא פָלְּחֵי טַעֲוָתָא עֹבַד יְדֵי אֱנָשָׁא אָעָא וְאַבְנָא דִי לָא יֶחֱזוּן וְלָא שָׁמְעִין וְלָא אָכְלִין וְלָא מְרִיחִין
(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.
וְתִיתְעוּקוּן לְמִפְלַח תַּמָּן לְפַלְחֵי טַעֲוָותָא עוֹבַד אִידֵיהוֹן דִּבְנֵי נְשָׁא מִן קֵיסָא וְאַבְנָא דְלָא חַמְיָין וְלָא שָׁמְעִין וְלָא אָכְלִין וְלָא מְרִיחִין
And there will you be constrained to serve the worshippers of idols, the work of men’s hands, of wood and stone, which see not, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell.
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.
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 17 words (14 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is rûwach (“to smell”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.
Commentary
Notes on Deuteronomy 4:28 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 →
Trapp's Complete Commentary
John Trapp
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Joseph Benson's Commentary
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Adam Clarke's Commentary
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne
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
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Wesley's Explanatory Notes
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Rashi
Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki (Rashi)
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.
Ramban (Nachmanides)
Rabbi Moshe ben Nachman (Ramban / Nachmanides)
Ramban (Nachmanides) on the Tanakh — English translation: “Commentary on the Torah by Ramban (Nachmanides). Translated and annotated by Charles B. Chavel. New York, Shilo Pub. House, 1971-1976” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.