Deuteronomy24:1–5

Where the English smooths the original

• וּבְעָלָ֑הּ BSB's gentle marries renders בָּעַל (bâʻal, H1166), literally to become master/lord of — the verb from which baʻal, "lord/husband," is built. The Hebrew names marriage as the man's assumption of lordship over the woman, the very relation that the rest of the law will both presume and restrain. The English smooths the asymmetry the original makes audible.
• עֶרְוַ֣ת דָּבָ֔ר BSB's some indecency flattens the construct עֶרְוַת דָּבָר (ʻerwaṯ dâḇâr) — literally a nakedness of a thing, "the shame of a matter." Keil renders it "a shameful thing"; the Pulpit, "a thing or matter of nakedness." This was the single most-contested phrase in rabbinic exegesis: Shammai read it as gross indecency, Hillel as any cause of dislike, and the Pharisees of Matthew 19:3 as "every cause." The smooth English "indecency" silently sides with Shammai and erases the dispute.
• סֵ֤פֶר כְּרִיתֻת֙ BSB's a certificate of divorce renders סֵפֶר כְּרִיתֻת (sêp̄er kᵉrîṯuṯ), literally a writing/scroll of cutting-off. The noun kᵉrîṯuṯ (H3748) means a severing, an excision — Keil: "hewing off, cutting off... from the man, with whom the wife was to be one flesh." The marriage made them one; the document records the amputation. "Divorce" is true but bloodless beside the Hebrew image of a cut.
• וְשִׁלְּחָ֖הּ BSB's send her away is close, but the Piel שִׁלַּח (šillaḥ, H7971) is the technical, intensive verb of formal dismissal — the same root that elsewhere "sends out" Israel from Egypt and is the legal term for releasing a wife. It is no casual sending; it is the deliberate, completed act of putting away that the whole statute is built to slow down and witness.

Where the English smooths the original

• וְיָצְאָ֖ה BSB's after leaving his house turns a finite verb into a subordinate participle. The Hebrew וְיָצְאָה (wᵉyâṣᵉʼâh, H3318) is a Qal perfect with waw — and she has gone out — the third in a chain of completed conditions (divorced, gone out, remarried) that Barnes and Keil insist are all still protasis, the "if," with the actual law withheld until verse 4. The English smooths the suspended grammar that the Hebrew deliberately stacks.
• וְהָיְתָ֥ה לְאִישׁ־אַחֵֽר BSB's becomes another man's wife supplies the word "wife," which the Hebrew leaves implicit: וְהָיְתָה לְאִישׁ־אַחֵר is literally and she becomes for-another-man — "belongs to another." The verb hâyâh ("to be") plus the preposition lᵉ is the idiom for entering a man's possession in marriage. The stark phrasing keeps her in view as one who has passed from one man's house to another's, the very passage that verse 4 will call a defilement.
• אַחֵֽר The adjective אַחֵר (ʼaḥêr, H312), another / a different one, carries the whole weight of the case. It is precisely because she has become another's — not merely single again — that return to the first is later barred. Jeremiah 3:1 will seize on this exact word ("and become another man's") to ask whether a polluted land could ever take its harlot-wife back.

Where the English smooths the original

• וּשְׂנֵאָהּ֮ BSB's hates her is literal but worth marking: the verb is שָׂנֵא (sânêʼ, H8130), to hate — the deliberate counterweight to verse 1, where the first man merely found her "displeasing." The law escalates: the second union ends not in dislike but in declared hatred, or in death. The word foreshadows what Rashi (cited by Ellicott) read as the bitter end such marriages tend toward.
• הָאַחֲרוֹן֒ BSB's the second man renders הָאַחֲרוֹן (hâʼaḥărôn, H314), literally the latter / the last one — the same root as ʼaḥêr ("another") in v. 2. "Second" counts; "latter" contrasts. The Hebrew sets the latter husband against the first (v. 4, hârîʼšôn), and it is that first-versus-last polarity, not mere numbering, on which the prohibition turns.
• יָמוּת֙ BSB's or if he dies faithfully renders יָמוּת (yâmûṯ, H4191), but the placement is the point: even death does not reopen the first marriage. Keil presses this — the first husband, he writes, "could not take his divorced wife back again, if she had married another husband in the meantime, even supposing that the second husband was dead." The law closes both exits, dismissal and death, so that the bar of verse 4 is absolute.

Where the English smooths the original

• בַּעְלָ֣הּ BSB's the husband renders בַּעְלָהּ (baʻlâh, H1167), literally her master / her baʻal — the noun built from the verb bâʻal of v. 1 ("became master of her"). The same root opened the unit and now closes it: the man who made himself her lord, and then unmade it, cannot resume the lordship. "Husband" loses the deliberate echo of mastery the Hebrew sounds from first verb to last noun.
• הֻטַּמָּ֔אָה BSB's after she has been defiled renders the rare reflexive-passive הֻטַּמָּאָה (huṭṭammâʼâh, H2930) — Keil identifies the form precisely as "Hothpael, as in Numbers 1:47." She is defiled not by sin in the second marriage (it was lawful), but, says Poole and Benson, only "respectively, or as to her first husband, to whom she is as a defiled or unclean woman, that is, forbidden." The single English word "defiled" hides that the defilement is relational and legal, not moral guilt.
• תוֹעֵבָ֥ה BSB's an abomination to the LORD renders תּוֹעֵבָה לִפְנֵי יְהוָה (tôʻêḇâh lip̄nê Yahweh, H8441) — literally an abomination before the face of Yahweh. This is the heaviest word in the covenant's moral vocabulary, used of idolatry and incest (Leviticus 18:25–29). Keil ranks the offense "as much as by the sins of incest and unnatural licentiousness." To call remarriage-after-remarriage tôʻêḇâh is to file it with the land-defiling sins.
• תַחֲטִיא֙ BSB's bring sin upon the land renders the Hifil תַחֲטִיא (taḥăṭîʼ, H2398) — cause the land to sin, make it miss the mark. Keil: "they would cause the land to sin, i.e., stain it with sin." The land itself is treated as capable of being made to sin and so polluted; the personal act of an individual man defiles the inheritance of the whole nation. The English "bring sin upon" softens the causative force the Hebrew puts on the offender.

Where the English smooths the original

• חֲדָשָׁ֔ה BSB's newly married renders the adjective חֲדָשָׁה (ḥăḏâšâh, H2319), new — describing the wife, not merely the timing: a new wife. Gill marks the precision: "this is opposed to his old wife, and divorced; for this... excepts the return of a divorced wife, who cannot be said to be a new one." The Hebrew adjective deliberately seals the foregoing divorce law: a remarried former wife is not "new," so this exemption cannot be claimed to recover her.
• יֵצֵא֙ בַּצָּבָ֔א BSB's be sent to war renders יֵצֵא בַּצָּבָא (yêṣêʼ baṣṣâḇâʼ) — literally go out with/in the host (army). Ellicott sharpens it: "He shall not go forth in warfare, neither shall warfare pass upon him in any form," noting that tsâḇâʼ can even denote the "warfare" of tabernacle service (Numbers 4:23). The English "sent to war" misses that the verb is the man's own "going out" with the muster, the same yâṣâʼ the wife "went out" with in v. 2.
• נָקִ֞י BSB's free renders נָקִי (nâqî, H5355), whose root means innocent, clean, acquitted — Cambridge notes the LXX athōos, "guiltless." He is not merely "off duty" but legally clear, exempt and unchargeable. The same word names the man cleared of bloodguilt (Deuteronomy 21:8). The English "free" captures the exemption but loses the forensic note of being held blameless of every public claim for the year.
• וְשִׂמַּ֖ח BSB's bring joy to renders the Piel וְשִׂמַּח (wᵉśimmaḥ, H8055) — causative of śâmaḥ, to make rejoice, to gladden. The Vulgate, on different vowel-points, read it intransitively, "be happy with his wife" (so Cambridge), but the Masoretic Piel makes the husband the active agent of his wife's joy: his year's whole charge is to gladden her. The law's positive command is the man's deliberate cultivation of his wife's delight.