Deuteronomy 16:1

Summary

The verse commands the observance of the month of Aviv ("Abib", H0024) and the performance of the Pesach ("Passover", H6453) offering to Yehovah. It grounds this instruction in a historical reason: Yehovah brought the people out of Egypt during that month, at night.

Key words

• shamOr ("keep", H8104G) — qal absolute infinitive, used to intensify the command; it functions as an emphatic imperative without a finite subject marker.
• chOdesh ("month of", H2320G) — masculine singular construct, appearing twice, linking to ha-Aviv ("the Abib") both times to specify which month is meant.
• 'asita ("you will observe", H6213A) — qal sequential perfect, continuing the action begun by the infinitive; grammatically it carries the force of a continued instruction ("and you shall do/observe").
• hotzi'akha ("he brought you out", H3318H) — hiphil perfect with 2nd person suffix, a causative form: the subject (Yehovah) causes the object (the addressee) to go out.
• laylah ("night", H3915) — masculine singular noun, standing adverbially at the end of the clause to specify the time of the exodus event.

What the text says

The sentence opens with an infinitive absolute, shamOr ("keep", H8104G), which in Biblical Hebrew grammar reinforces the following finite verb rather than standing as its own separate action; here it precedes and intensifies the instruction expressed by 'asita ("you will observe", H6213A), a sequential perfect that continues the discourse chain begun by the infinitive. The object of attention is chodesh ha-Aviv ("the month of Abib", H2320G + H0024), a construct phrase naming a specific month by an agricultural/seasonal term rather than a numbered month.

The clause structure moves from command (shamOr... ve-'asita, "keep... and you will observe") to a causal explanation introduced by ki ("for/because", H3588A). This subordinating particle links the instruction to a report of a past completed event, marked by the perfect hotzi'akha ("he brought you out", H3318H), a hiphil form indicating that Yehovah is grammatically the causer of the going-out, with the addressee as its direct object via the suffix -kha ("you", H9031). The temporal note laylah ("night", H3915) closes the verse, specifying that the described departure occurred at night, without further elaboration in the Hebrew grammar itself.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders chodesh ha-Aviv ("month of Abib") as τὸν μῆνα τῶν νέων ("the month of new things/new grain"), translating the agricultural sense of Aviv (H0024) rather than transliterating it as a proper month-name. The Vulgate similarly expands it as "mensem novarum frugum, et verni primum temporis" ("the month of new produce, and the first of spring time"), adding interpretive language not present as separate lexical items in the Hebrew construct phrase. The Hebrew itself simply repeats the construct chodesh ha-Aviv twice without such explanatory expansion.