Exodus 40:13
וְהִלְבַּשְׁתָּ אֶֽת־אַהֲרֹן אֵת בִּגְדֵי הַקֹּדֶשׁ וּמָשַׁחְתָּ אֹתוֹ וְקִדַּשְׁתָּ אֹתוֹ וְכִהֵן לִֽי׃
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✦ The same verse in five languages
וְהִלְבַּשְׁתָּ֙ אֶֽת־אַהֲרֹ֔ן אֵ֖ת בִּגְדֵ֣י הַקֹּ֑דֶשׁ וּמָשַׁחְתָּ֥ אֹת֛וֹ וְקִדַּשְׁתָּ֥ אֹת֖וֹ וְכִהֵ֥ן לִֽי׃
καὶ ἀλείψεις αὐτοὺς ὃν τρόπον ἤλειψας τὸν πατέρα αὐτῶν, καὶ ἱερατεύσουσίν μοι· καὶ ἔσται ὥστε εἶναι αὐτοῖς χρῖσμα ἱερατίας εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα, εἰς τὰς γενεὰς αὐτῶν.
Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0
Latin (Vulgate)
indues sanctis vestibus, ut ministrent mihi, et unctio eorum in sacerdotium sempiternum proficiat.
Vestirás a Aarón con la ropa sagrada, lo ungirás y lo consagrarás para que me sirva como sacerdote.
Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)
Y harás vestir á Aarón las vestiduras sagradas, y lo ungirás, y lo consagrarás, para que sea mi sacerdote.
And you are to clothe Aaron with the holy garments, anoint him, and consecrate him, so that he may serve Me as a priest.
✦ What the text says
Summary
Exodus 40:13 instructs Moses to dress Aaron in the sacred garments, anoint him, and consecrate him, with the stated purpose that Aaron serve as priest to YHWH. The verse is built as a chain of four sequential actions expressed through consecutive perfect verbs.
Key words
- hilbashTa ("you will clothe", H3847) — hiphil (causative) sequential perfect: "you" causes Aaron to be clothed, rather than Aaron clothing himself.
- bigdei ("garments of", H0899B) — masculine plural construct, forming a bound phrase with ha-qodesh, "the garments of holiness."
- mashachTa ("you will anoint", H4886) — qal (simple) sequential perfect, continuing the same chain of instructions as hilbashTa.
- qidashTa ("you will consecrate", H6942G) — piel (intensive) sequential perfect; the intensive stem marks a formal, effective act of setting apart.
- khiHen ("he will serve as a priest", H3547) — piel sequential perfect, but shifting to third person: the subject changes from "you" (Moses) to "he" (Aaron).
What the text says
The Hebrew sentence is a sequence of four verbs, each attached by the narrative vav (ve-/u-) and each in the sequential perfect form, which in this context functions as a chain of commands following on from prior instructions in the chapter. Three of the verbs — hilbashTa, mashachTa, qidashTa — share "you" (Moses) as their grammatical subject, with 'et-Aharon ("Aaron", H0175) and the repeated object marker 'et (H0853) marking Aaron as the one acted upon. The final verb, khiHen, shifts the subject to "he" (Aaron), producing a grammatical turn: after being clothed, anointed, and consecrated by Moses, Aaron himself becomes the one who acts, serving li ("to me", combining preposition H9005 and suffix H9030) — that is, for YHWH. The construct phrase bigdei ha-qodesh ("garments of holiness/the holy garments") uses the construct state to link "garments" directly to "holiness" as a genitive-type relation, a common Hebrew way of forming what is often rendered as an adjectival phrase in translation.
Differences between versions
The LXX (Swete) uses plural forms — ἀλείψεις αὐτοὺς ("you will anoint them") — and adds a comparison "as you anointed their father," diverging from the Hebrew's singular focus on Aaron alone in this verse. The Vulgate (Clementine) compresses the sequence, rendering qidashTa and mashachTa together as unctio eorum ("their anointing") leading to sacerdotium sempiternum ("eternal priesthood"), an addition not present in the Hebrew wording of this specific verse, which does not use a term for "eternal."
This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.