Leviticus 1:2

Summary

Yehovah instructs Moses to speak to the Israelites, laying out the general rule for offerings: when any person among them brings a qorban ("present", H7133A) to Yehovah, it must come from livestock — specifically from the herd or the flock.

Key words

• da.Ber ("speak", H1696G) — piel imperative, giving Moses a direct, intensive command to transmit speech to the people.
• yak.Riv ("he will present", H7126H) — hiphil (causative) imperfect, third person singular: the causative stem frames the offerer as one who "causes to draw near" his offering, not merely "gives" it.
• kor.ban ("a present", H7133A) — masculine singular noun, from the same root as yak.Riv and tak.Ri.vu, built on the verb "to draw near" (H7126H), linking the object offered to the act of approach.
• tak.Ri.vu ("you will present", H7126H) — hiphil imperfect, second person plural, shifting from the singular hypothetical offerer ('adam, "anyone", H0120G) to a plural instruction addressed to the community.
• be.he.Mah ("livestock", H0929) — feminine singular collective noun, further specified by ba.Kar ("herd", H1241) and Tzon ("flock", H6629G), narrowing the category of acceptable offering material.

What the text says

The verse opens with two verbs in sequence: da.Ber ("speak", H1696G), a piel imperative, followed by 'a.mar.Ta ("you will say", H0559), a qal sequential perfect continuing the command. This pairs a general instruction (speak) with its specific content (say to them). The addressees are marked by the preposition 'el ("to", H0413) attached to a third-person plural suffix (Hem, "them", H9038), referring back to be.nei Yis.ra.'El ("the people of Israel", H1121G + H3478).

The conditional clause begins with ki ("that/if", H3588A) introducing 'a.Dam ("anyone", H0120G) as the generic singular subject, followed by yak.Riv ("he will present", H7126H), a hiphil imperfect. The causative stem of this verb (from the root also giving kor.ban, H7133A) frames the action as "causing to draw near" rather than a neutral "giving." The phrase mi.Kem ("of you", H9006+H9036) specifies that the offerer comes from within the community.

The verse then shifts grammatical number: after the singular 'a.Dam...yak.Riv construction, the text moves to tak.Ri.vu ("you will present", H7126H), a plural hiphil imperfect, addressing the group directly. This shift accompanies the specification of source material: min ha.be.he.Mah ("from the livestock", H0929), narrowed by min ha.ba.Kar ("from the herd", H1241) and min ha.Tzon ("from the flock", H6629G). The final clause repeats kor.ban with a second-person plural suffix (ka.re.ban.Khem, "your present", H7133A+H9026), marked by the direct object particle 'et (H0853), closing the instruction by returning to the same root that opened the conditional clause.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders 'a.Dam ("anyone", H0120G) as Ἅνθρωπος ("a man"), and translates the plural tak.Ri.vu ("you will present") as προσοίσετε ("you will bring"), paired with δῶρα ("gifts") rather than a term tied etymologically to "drawing near" as in the Hebrew kor.ban/yak.Riv wordplay. The Vulgate renders kor.ban as hostiam ("sacrificial victim") and later victimas, introducing sacrificial terminology not explicit in the Hebrew noun kor.ban ("present", H7133A) itself, which derives from the root meaning "to draw near" rather than "to slaughter."