Leviticus 10:8

Summary

The verse records that Yehovah spoke directly to Aaron, introducing a divine speech that follows in subsequent verses. It uses the standard narrative formula for introducing prophetic or legal instruction.

Key words

• va ("and", H9001) — the narrative vav prefixed to the verb, marking this clause as the next event in the sequence of the story.
• y.da.Ber ("he spoke", H1696G) — Piel stem of the root, narrative form; the Piel here carries the basic sense "to speak" (an intensive-stem verb used for this root without necessarily implying extra intensity in meaning).
• Yehovah ("Yehovah", H3068G) — the divine name, functioning as the grammatical subject of the verb "he spoke."
• 'el- ("to", H0413) — preposition marking Aaron as the addressee/recipient of the speech.
• Mor ("saying", H0559) — Qal infinitive construct of the root "to say," functioning adverbially to introduce direct discourse, equivalent to opening quotation marks before the content of the speech.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence follows a fixed syntactic pattern common in narrative and legal sections of the text: verb–subject–prepositional phrase–infinitive of speech. The verb y.da.Ber ("he spoke", H1696G) opens the clause, preceded by the narrative va ("and", H9001), which signals continuity with the preceding narrative material rather than an isolated or independent statement. The subject, Yehovah ("Yehovah", H3068G), follows the verb, a common verb-subject order in this type of narration.

The prepositional phrase 'el- 'a.ha.Ron ("to Aaron", H0413 + H0175) identifies the addressee as Aaron specifically, not a broader audience such as "the Israelites" or "Moses and Aaron," a detail that distinguishes this verse from many other speech-formulas in the surrounding material where Moses is the addressee. The final element, le.Mor ("saying", H9005 + H0559), is an infinitive construct that functions as a formal marker opening direct speech, comparable in function to a colon before a quotation in English. It does not carry independent semantic weight beyond signaling that quoted words follow.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew 'el- 'a.ha.Ron ("to Aaron") is rendered in the LXX as τῷ Ἀαρὼν (dative, "to Aaron") and in the Vulgate as ad Aaron ("to Aaron"), both preserving the same addressee. The Vulgate adds quoque ("also/likewise"), a connective not present as a separate lexical item in the Hebrew text, which uses only the narrative vav (va) to link this verse to what precedes.