Leviticus 10:11

Summary

This verse continues a sentence begun in Leviticus 10:10, expressing the purpose of the preceding instruction: to teach the people of Israel all the statutes that Yehovah spoke to them through Moses. The clause identifies Moses as the intermediary through whom the divine statutes were transmitted.

Key words

• lehoRot ("to teach", H3384B) — hiphil infinitive construct with prefixed le- ("to teach"), expressing purpose; the hiphil stem is causative, so the sense is "to cause to know/teach."
• chuqqim ("statutes", H2706G) — masculine plural noun, definite via the article ha- (H9009) and in construct with kol ("all", H3605), forming "all the statutes."
• diBer ("he has spoken", H1696G) — piel perfect, third person masculine singular; the piel stem intensifies the basic sense of speaking, and the perfect aspect marks the action as completed.
• yad ("hand of", H3027J) — masculine singular noun in construct with Mosheh ("Moses", H4872), forming the idiom "by the hand of Moses," indicating agency or means.
• 'et (H0853) — appears twice as the direct object marker, first before bene Yisra'el ("sons/people of Israel") and second before kol-hachuqqim ("all the statutes"), marking both as objects of the infinitive lehoRot.

What the text says

The verse is grammatically dependent on what precedes it: the infinitive construct lehoRot ("to teach") with the prefixed preposition le- expresses purpose or result, meaning something like "...in order to teach" or "...and to teach." This construction has no subject of its own; it continues the syntax of the previous clause. The infinitive takes two objects, each marked by 'et: first "the people of Israel" (bene Yisra'el), then "all the statutes" (kol-hachuqqim), which is further specified by the relative clause introduced by 'asher ("which", H0834A): "which Yehovah has spoken to them" (diBer Yehovah 'aleihem). The verb diBer is in the piel perfect, denoting a completed act of speaking. The final phrase, beyad-Mosheh ("by the hand of Moses"), uses the construct noun yad ("hand") idiomatically to indicate that Moses served as the means or agent through whom the statutes were communicated.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew infinitive lehoRot (impersonal, purpose-marking) is rendered in the LXX as a finite second-person future verb, symbibaseis ("you will teach/instruct"), and in the Vulgate as a second-person plural subjunctive, doceatisque ("and you should teach"). Both the LXX and Vulgate shift the grammatical subject to a direct address ("you"), where the Hebrew infinitive construct leaves the subject implicit, continuing syntactically from the prior verse.