Deuteronomy 18:1

Summary

Deuteronomy 18:1 states that the priests belonging to the tribe of Levi will not receive a landed portion or inheritance among the Israelites, as the rest of the tribes do. Instead, what they receive to eat are the fire offerings made to Yehovah (H3068) and "his inheritance," described in apposition to that phrase.

Key words

• Yih.yeh ("it will belong", H1961) — qal imperfect, 3rd masc. sing.; states a negated future/ongoing condition, "there will not be."
• Che.lek ("a portion", H2506A) and na.cha.Lah ("an inheritance", H5159) — two masculine/feminine singular nouns joined by ve ("and", H9002); together they form the subject of yihyeh, the thing that "will not be" for the priests.
• 'i.Shei ("the fire offerings of", H0801) — masculine plural construct, grammatically bound to Yehovah, marking what the priests eat instead of land.
• na.cha.la.T-o ("his inheritance", H5159 + H9023) — construct noun with 3rd masc. sing. suffix "his," referring back to Yehovah; this is a second item, alongside the fire offerings, that the priests consume.
• yo.khe.Lu-n ("they will eat!", H0398 + H9013) — qal imperfect 3rd masc. plural with paragogic nun (H9013), an emphatic verbal ending marking the closing statement of the clause.

What the text says

The verse opens with a negated verb, lo' yihyeh ("it will not be", H3808 + H1961), whose grammatical subject is delayed until later in the sentence: chelek ve-nachalah ("a portion and an inheritance", H2506A + H5159). Between the verb and its subject, the text places the beneficiaries in apposition: la-kohanim ha-leviim ("to the priests, the Levites", H3548 + H3881) followed by a second clarifying phrase, kol-shevet Levi ("all the tribe of Levi", H3605 + H7626H + H3878). This apposition identifies the priests as belonging to the tribe of Levi before stating what they lack: land "with Israel" ('im-Yisra'el, H5973A + H3478).

The second half of the verse shifts to a positive statement introduced by ishei Yehovah ("the fire offerings of Yehovah", H0801 + H3068), grammatically in construct with the divine name. A second noun, nachalato ("his inheritance", H5159 + H9023), stands alongside it, both governed by the final verb yo'khelun ("they will eat", H0398), which carries the paragogic nun (H9013), an emphatic ending on the imperfect form.

Differences between versions

The LXXSWETE renders nachalato ("his inheritance") as "ὁ κλῆρος αὐτῶν" ("their portion"), shifting the pronoun from singular ("his," referring to Yehovah) to plural ("their," referring to the priests), where the Hebrew suffix -o (H9023) is third-person masculine singular. The Vulgate's "oblationes ejus" ("his offerings") retains a singular possessive, closer to the Hebrew suffix, though it restructures the sentence by combining "sacrificia" and "oblationes" without the same "portion/inheritance" (chelek/nachalah) pairing used twice in the Hebrew text.