Leviticus 10:3

Summary

Moses tells Aaron that the deaths just witnessed fulfill a divine statement: God will show himself holy among those near him and will be glorified before the people. Aaron responds with silence.

Key words

• qerovai ("midst"/"my near ones", H7138) — masculine plural construct with 1st person suffix, "those near to me"; the referent (priests, or those in physical proximity to the sanctuary) is not specified by the grammar itself.
• 'eqqadesh ("I will show myself holy", H6942) — niphal imperfect, 1st person. The niphal stem here carries a reflexive/passive nuance: the subject (God) is both the one enacting and the one manifesting holiness, distinct from a simple active "I will sanctify."
• 'ekkaved ("I will gain glory", H3513) — niphal imperfect, 1st person, paralleling 'eqqadesh in stem and person; expresses that glory becomes manifest/attributed to the subject rather than being actively produced by an object.
• penei ("face of", H6440) — masculine plural construct, literally "the face(s) of," here governing "all the people"; contributes a spatial/visual sense ("in front of," "in view of") rather than an abstract "presence."
• yiddom ("he was silent", H1826) — qal narrative (vayyiqtol) form, 3rd person masculine, continuing the narrative chain begun by vayyomer ("he said"); marks Aaron's silence as the next discrete narrated event, not a description of an ongoing state.

What the text says

The verse opens with the narrative verb vayyomer ("and he said") introducing Moses' speech to Aaron. The core of that speech is built on the demonstrative hu' ("it/this") followed by the relative clause 'asher dibber Yehovah ("that which YHWH spoke"), identifying the just-quoted words as a prior divine statement now being recalled and applied to the present situation. The quoted material itself is framed by le'mor ("saying"), an infinitive construct commonly used to introduce direct speech.

Within the quotation, the two niphal imperfect verbs 'eqqadesh and 'ekkaved are grammatically parallel: same stem, same person, same aspect (imperfect, expressing future or ongoing action). This parallel structure ties the notions "show myself holy" and "gain glory" together as two aspects of a single event, one linked to biqrovai ("in/through my near ones") and the other to 'al-penei kol ha'am ("upon the face of all the people"). The syntax thus sets a contrast in scope — a nearer group versus the whole people — without further specifying who "my near ones" are. The final clause returns to plain qal narrative with vayyiddom, marking Aaron's silence as a discrete narrated act following Moses' statement, not an interpretive comment on his emotional state.

Differences between versions

• The LXX renders biqrovai ("in/through my near ones") as ἐν τοῖς ἐγγίζουσίν μοι ("among those who draw near to me"), using a participial construction rather than the Hebrew construct-plus-suffix form; the underlying image of "nearness" is preserved but expressed as an ongoing action ("drawing near") rather than a fixed group ("my near ones").
• The LXX renders 'al-penei kol ha'am ("upon the face of all the people") as ἐν πάσῃ συναγωγῇ ("in the whole assembly/synagogue"), replacing the Hebrew's visual "face" language with a term for a gathered community.
• The Vulgate's in conspectu omnis populi ("in the sight of all the people") stays closer to the Hebrew's visual sense of penei ("face of") than the LXX's assembly-based phrasing.