Leviticus 10:2

Summary

The verse narrates that fire went out from before Yehovah and consumed two persons (referred to only by the pronominal suffix "them"), who then died before Yehovah. The sentence is a tight sequence of three narrative actions: fire emerges, fire consumes, the men die.

Key words

• Te.tze' ("it went out", H3318) — qal narrative verb, feminine form agreeing with 'esh ("fire"); marks the first event in the chain with the narrative vav.
• 'esh ("fire", H0784) — common-gender singular noun, the subject of the first two verbs; it is fire itself, not a messenger or agent, that acts.
• mi-li-f'nei ("from before", H9006+H9005+H6440) — compound preposition built from mi ("from") and li-f'nei ("to the face of"), a construct expression literally "from the face of," used with Yehovah to indicate spatial origin at the divine presence.
• To.khal ("it consumed", H0398) — qal narrative verb, feminine, again agreeing with 'esh; continues the same subject through the vav-chain.
• li-f'nei Yehovah ("before Yehovah", H9005+H6440+H3068) — the same construct phrase f'nei ("face of") repeated at the end, this time without the mi ("from"), marking the location where the death occurs rather than the origin of the fire.

What the text says

The Hebrew verse is built as a chain of three consecutive narrative verbs joined by the vav ("and"): Te.tze' ("it went out"), To.khal ("it consumed"), and Yamutu ("they died"). All three carry the narrative vav, which in Biblical Hebrew signals sequential action — first this, then that, then the next. The subject of the first two verbs is 'esh ("fire"), grammatically feminine, which explains the feminine verb forms Te.tze' and To.khal. The third verb, Yamutu, shifts to a masculine plural subject, referring back to the two men indicated only by the object suffix -am ("them") attached to 'oTam.

A notable structural feature is the repetition of the construct phrase f'nei ("face of") governing Yehovah: first as mi-li-f'nei Yehovah ("from before Yehovah"), marking the point of origin of the fire, and then as li-f'nei Yehovah ("before Yehovah") without the mi ("from"), marking the location of death. This creates a spatial frame — the fire moves out from the divine presence and the men die back within that same presence — that the object marker 'oTam (H0853) does not translate but simply marks the two men as the grammatical object of To.khal.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders mi-li-f'nei Yehovah ("from before Yehovah") as para kyriou ("from the Lord"), omitting the "face" (f'nei) imagery present in the Hebrew construct phrase. The Vulgate's a Domino ("from the Lord") similarly drops the "face" element found in the Hebrew. For the second occurrence, the LXX uses enanti Kyriou ("before the Lord") and the Vulgate coram Domino ("before the Lord"), both preserving a locative sense closer to the Hebrew li-f'nei ("before") than the earlier phrase does.