Leviticus 11:1

Summary

The verse opens a new divine speech unit, stating that Yehovah spoke to both Moses and Aaron together, introducing the instructions that follow. It establishes a dual audience — unlike many priestly laws addressed to Moses alone — and frames the coming content as direct speech to be communicated to the people.

Key words

• va-y'daBer ("and he spoke", H1696G) — piel narrative verb form; the piel stem intensifies the act of speaking, and the vav-consecutive links this event sequentially to the surrounding narrative.
• Yehovah ("Yehovah", H3068G) — the divine name functions as the subject of the verb, identifying the speaker.
• el-Mosheh ("to Moses", H4872) — proper name marked with the preposition el ("to", H0413), indicating the first addressee.
• ve-el-Aharon ("and to Aaron", H0175) — proper name joined by the conjunction ve and repeated preposition el, marking a second, coordinate addressee.
• leMor ("saying", H0559) — qal infinitive construct, a standard formula introducing reported speech; it signals that direct discourse follows.
• aleHem ("to them", H9038) — pronominal suffix "them" attached to el, referring back to Moses and Aaron, reinforcing that the message is meant to be relayed to a further group.

What the text says

The sentence follows the standard Hebrew narrative pattern: a vav-consecutive verb (vay'daBer, "and he spoke") placed at the front of the clause, with the subject Yehovah following it — the normal verb-subject order of Biblical Hebrew narrative prose. The verb is in the piel stem, which in this idiom conveys the ordinary sense of authoritative speech rather than a doubled or repeated action; this is the standard formula opening priestly legal material.

Structurally, the object of the speech is marked twice with the preposition el ("to"): once before Mosheh and once before Aharon, joined by the conjunction ve. This repetition of the preposition, rather than a single el covering both names, gives each addressee separate grammatical weight, presenting Moses and Aaron as two distinct but jointly addressed recipients rather than a single combined entity.

The clause closes with the infinitive leMor ("saying"), the conventional Hebrew device for introducing direct speech, followed by aleHem ("to them"), a prepositional phrase with a pronominal suffix. This final phrase adds a further layer: the speech that Moses and Aaron receive is itself intended for transmission to a third party, though the direct antecedent of "them" is not made explicit within this verse alone.

Differences between versions

The LXX (Ἀαρὼν λέγων) and Vulgate (ad Moysen et Aaron, dicens) render only one address to "Moses and Aaron," without reduplicating "to" before each name as the Hebrew does with el twice. Additionally, the LXX and Vulgate do not represent a separate word corresponding to aleHem ("to them"); the double addressee-marking and the final pronominal phrase are features visible only in the Hebrew's syntax.