Leviticus 10:13

Summary

The verse instructs that a portion (referred to with a feminine pronoun) must be eaten in a holy place, explains that this portion is legally assigned to Aaron and his sons from the fire offerings made to Yehovah, and closes with a statement that this arrangement follows a divine command.

Key words

• 'akhaltem ("you will eat", H0398) — qal sequential perfect, continuing the narrative chain of instructions begun earlier in the passage.
• maqom qadosh ("a place... holy", H4725 + H6918G) — noun + adjective, both masculine singular, designating the location where the eating must occur.
• chokecha ("your prescribed portion", H2706H) — masculine singular construct noun with 2ms suffix; construct form links it grammatically to the following clause about "sons."
• hi' ("she/it", H1931) — independent personal pronoun, feminine, resuming the previously mentioned feminine object (otah, "it/her") as the subject of the nominal clause "it is your portion."
• tzuveiti ("I have been commanded", H6680) — pual (intensive passive) perfect, 1st person; the passive voice omits the agent of the command, leaving it grammatically unstated who issued it.

What the text says

The clause opens with the sequential perfect 'a.khal.Tem ("you will eat", H0398), marked by the narrative va (H9001), which continues a chain of legal instructions rather than introducing an independent statement. The object is marked twice: once through the direct object particle 'otah (H0853 + H9034, "it/her") and again through the resumptive pronoun hi' (H1931) later in the verse — a common Biblical Hebrew construction where a pronoun restates the subject of a nominal clause ("it is your portion and the portion of your sons").

Two construct chains appear side by side: chokecha ("your portion", H2706H) and choq-baneicha ("the portion of your sons", H2706H + H1121A), both governed by the same feminine pronoun hi'. This construct-suffix pattern encodes a legal/technical sense of an assigned share, not a general division. The source of this share is specified by me'ishei Yehovah ("from the fire offerings of Yehovah", H0801 + H3068G), a construct noun in the plural.

The verse contains two occurrences of ki (H3588A, "for/that/if"), each introducing a subordinate clause of justification — first for the portion's legal status, second for the origin of the command itself. The final verb, tzuveiti (H6680), is pual perfect, a passive form placing the speaker as the recipient of a command whose grammatical agent is not expressed in the Hebrew.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the construct noun choq ("prescribed portion", H2706H) as νόμιμον αἰώνιον ("a perpetual/eternal statute"), adding the qualifier "eternal," which has no corresponding lexical item in the Hebrew text provided. The Vulgate uses "quod datum est" ("what has been given"), a more generic verb of giving, where the Hebrew employs the specific legal noun choq denoting a fixed, prescribed share rather than a general gift.