Deuteronomy 5:13

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

Six days shall you labor, and do all your work;

World English Bible · Public Domain

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Word by word

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מְלַאכְתֶּֽךָ

mᵉlâʼkâh

H4399

“work · your”

Noun, Common, Feminine, Singular, Construct + Suffix, Personal, 2nd Person, Masculine, Singular

Appears 167× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears at Genesis 2:2

Full BDB Definition

Origin: from the same as H4397

TWOT: 1068b

occupation, work, business - occupation, business - property - work (something done or made) - workmanship - service, use - public business - political - religious

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 →

6: words
6: distinct lemmas
Pentateuch: section

Grammatical profile

2 verbs
3 nouns
1 adjective

Verb forms

תַּֽעֲבֹ֔ד Qal · Imperfect
וְעָשִׂ֖יתָ Qal · Sequential Perfect

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 10 words from the Hebrew and 12 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 6 Hebrew tokens and 9 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 5:13 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.

Ezekiel 20:12 Moreover also I gave them my Sabbaths, to be a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am Yahweh who sanctifies them.
Exodus 23:12 "Six days you shall do your work, and on the seventh day you shall rest, that your ox and your donkey may have rest, and the son of your handmaid, and the alien may be refreshed.
Exodus 35:2–3 'Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh day there shall be a holy day for you, a Sabbath of solemn rest to Yahweh: whoever does any work in it shall be put to death.
Luke 13:14–16 The ruler of the synagogue, being indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, said to the multitude, "There are six days in which men ought to work. Therefore come on those days and be healed, and not on the Sabbath day!"
Luke 23:56 They returned, and prepared spices and ointments. On the Sabbath they rested according to the commandment.

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 5:13 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

שֵׁ֤שֶׁת יָמִים֙ תַּֽעֲבֹ֔ד וְעָשִׂ֖יתָ כָּל מְלַאכְתֶּֽךָ

Six days shall you labor, and do all your work;

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX Deuteronomy 5:13 Septuagint · lemma form

ἕξ ἡμέρα ἐργάζομαι καί ποιέω πᾶς ὁ ἔργον σύ

Six days you shall work, and you shall do all your works;

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)

שִׁתָּא יוֹמִין תִּפְלָח וְתַעְבֵּד כָּל עִבִדְתָּךְ

(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)

שִׁתָּא יוֹמִין תִּפְלְחוּן וְתַעַבְדוּן כָּל עִיבִידְתְּכוֹן

Six days you shall labour and do all your work,

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 5:13 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

Meaning, since God permitteth six days to our labors, that we ought willingly to dedicate the seventh to serve him wholly.

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

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 6 words (6 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is mᵉlâʼkâh (“work”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

What does “work” (mᵉlâʼkâh) contribute to the verse as a whole?
Ezekiel 20:12 shares this passage’s theme. How do the two illuminate each other?
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?
The verb «תַּֽעֲבֹ֔ד» is Qal Imperfect. How does its form color the action?

Things to notice

This verse counts 6 Hebrew ↔ 9 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 3 words in this verse.
6 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 6 words in this verse.