Deuteronomy 14:27

Summary

The verse instructs that the Levite living within the community's gates must not be neglected, because unlike other Israelites he possesses no landed portion or inheritance of his own among the people.

Key words

• ta'azvennu ("you will neglect", H5800H) — qal imperfect with 3ms suffix "him"; combined with lo' ("not", H3808) it forms a negative command, "you shall not abandon him."
• sha'areikha ("your gates", H8179H) — masculine plural construct with 2ms suffix, literally "gates of you," idiomatically meaning "within your towns/settlements."
• ein ("there is not", H0369) — construct negative existential particle, used with the preposition lo ("to him") to state possession-negation: "there is not to him," i.e., "he has none."
• chelek ("a portion", H2506A) — masculine singular noun denoting a share, here of land or property.
• nachalah ("an inheritance", H5159) — feminine singular noun for inherited landholding, paired with chelek to express the totality of what the Levite lacks.

What the text says

The sentence opens with a casus pendens construction: veha-Levi 'asher bi-sh'areikha ("and the Levite who is in your gates") is placed first as the topic, before the main verb. This fronting emphasizes the subject—the Levite—before stating the obligation toward him. The main clause, lo ta'azvennu ("you shall not neglect him"), uses the qal imperfect of 'azav (H5800H) with a pronominal suffix attached directly to the verb, a common Biblical Hebrew way of expressing a direct object without a separate word.

The causal clause beginning with ki ("for", H3588A) explains the command: ein lo chelek venachalah 'immakh ("there is not to him a portion and an inheritance with you"). The construction ein lo is a standard Hebrew idiom for negated possession, literally "there-is-not to-him," equivalent to "he has none." The two nouns chelek and nachalah appear together, likely functioning as a pair covering both a general "share" and a specific "landed inheritance," underlining that the Levite's lack of property is total, not partial.

Differences between versions

The Vulgate renders the double noun chelek venachalah with a single term, aliam partem ("another portion"), adding the word "aliam" ("other") which has no direct counterpart among the Hebrew words listed, and does not reproduce nachalah separately. The Septuagint text supplied here does not correspond in content to the Hebrew of this verse; it speaks instead of a tithe of produce (ἐπιδέκατον τῶν γενημάτων) and storing it in the towns, subject matter matching a different portion of Deuteronomy 14 rather than the Levite's lack of inheritance.