Leviticus 10:19

Summary

Aaron answers Moses' unspoken concern about the priestly conduct earlier that day. He recalls that the sin offering and burnt offering were duly presented before Yehovah, states that "such things" happened to him, and closes with a rhetorical question asking whether eating the sin offering that day would have been good in Yehovah's eyes.

Key words

• y.daBer ("he spoke", H1696G) — piel narrative verb; the intensive stem marks this as a formal reported speech, not casual conversation.
• hikRivu ("they have presented", H7126H) — hiphil perfect; the causative stem indicates the priests actively brought/caused the offerings to be presented, and the perfect aspect marks the action as completed before the moment of speaking.
• tikReNah ("they have happened to", H7122I) — qal narrative verb, third person feminine plural, agreeing with the feminine plural these things (referring to a set of events, not a single one).
• 'aKhalti ("I will eat", H0398) — qal sequential perfect ("I would have eaten"/"I will eat"), continuing the logical chain of Aaron's argument rather than marking a new independent action.
• haiYitav ("will it be good", H3190) — qal imperfect prefixed with the interrogative particle ha (H9008); the imperfect aspect frames this as an open, hypothetical/future-oriented question rather than a statement.

What the text says

The verse is built as a chain introduced by the narrative va- prefix on y.daBer, marking it as the next event in the narrative sequence: "and Aaron spoke." Aaron's speech itself opens with the interjection hen ("here!", H2005), drawing attention to a stated fact, followed by a temporal phrase ha-yom ("the day", using the definite article H9009) and the hiphil perfect hikRivu, describing the priests' completed act of bringing the offerings lifnei Yehovah ("before Yehovah").

The construct phrases chattaTam ("their sin offering") and 'olaTam ("their burnt offering") link the offering nouns to a possessive suffix, indicating these are the offerings belonging to the priests as a group. Aaron then shifts to va-tikReNah 'oti ka'Elleh — "and these things happened to me" — using a feminine plural verb agreeing with the plural demonstrative ka'Elleh ("like these"), pointing to a set of events rather than one single incident. The sequential perfect 'achalti continues the logic: it functions less as a plain past-tense statement and more as a conditional/hypothetical link in Aaron's reasoning.

The closing sentence uses a second occurrence of ha-, but here it is not the definite article (as in ha-yom, "the day") but the interrogative particle (H9008) prefixed to the qal imperfect yitav — literally "would it be good" — producing a rhetorical question addressed to Moses, asking whether Aaron's action (or inaction) would have been acceptable be'einei Yehovah ("in the eyes of Yehovah," construct plural of 'einei, "eyes of").

Differences between versions

The Hebrew presents Aaron's statement as a direct rhetorical question ending in ha-yitav..., "would it be good in Yehovah's eyes?" The LXX renders the opening not with hen ("behold") but with the conditional/interrogative εἰ ("if/whether"), turning the entire utterance into an indirect question ("whether they have presented..."), and later mirrors the Hebrew's closing question with μὴ ἀρεστὸν ἔσται κυρίῳ ("would it not be pleasing to the Lord?"). The Vulgate diverges further, rendering the sequence as declarative statements ("Oblata est hodie victima...") followed by a distinct rhetorical question, "quomodo potui comedere...aut placere Domino," which restructures Aaron's reasoning as "how could I have eaten...or pleased the Lord" rather than preserving the Hebrew's single yes/no interrogative form built on ha-.