Leviticus 14:33

Summary

The verse introduces divine speech: Yehovah speaks to Moses and Aaron, opening a new legal instruction with the standard formula "saying." It contains no legal content itself, only the narrative frame for what follows.

Key words

• va-y'daBer ("and he spoke", H1696G) — piel verb with narrative vav, marking a new sequential event in the story; piel here carries the sense of formal, authoritative speech rather than mere intensity.
• Yehovah ("Yehovah", H3068G) — proper name functioning as the subject of the verb, identifying the speaker.
• 'el ("to", H0413) — preposition repeated before both "Moses" and "Aaron," marking each as a distinct recipient of the address.
• Aharon ("Aaron", H0175) — proper name, second addressee, joined to Moses by the conjunction ve ("and", H9002).
• leMor ("saying", H0559) — qal infinitive construct with prefixed le, introducing direct speech that follows; a fixed formula meaning literally "to say" or "in saying."

What the text says

The sentence follows the standard narrative pattern found throughout Leviticus: a finite verb in piel form, va-y'daBer ("and he spoke"), placed first, followed by its subject Yehovah. This word order (verb-subject) is typical of Biblical Hebrew narrative syntax using the vav-consecutive construction, which links this verse to the preceding material as the next event in sequence.

The recipients of the speech are marked by two parallel prepositional phrases, 'el-Mosheh ("to Moses") and ve-'el-Aharon ("and to Aaron"), each introduced by the preposition 'el ("to", H0413). The repetition of 'el before each name, rather than a single preposition governing both names together, gives each recipient separate grammatical weight, though both are joined under the same verb of speaking.

The verse closes with the infinitive leMor ("saying"), a common formulaic device in Hebrew narrative that introduces reported speech. This infinitive construction does not add new information but signals that the words immediately following are to be understood as the direct content of what Yehovah spoke.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew marks two separate prepositional phrases ("to Moses and to Aaron"), each with its own 'el. The LXX (Καὶ ἐλάλησεν κύριος πρὸς Μωυσῆν καὶ Ἀαρών) uses a single preposition πρός governing both names, without repeating it for Aaron. The Vulgate similarly uses one "ad" for both ("ad Moysen et Aaron"). The BSB and RV1909 follow this pattern of a single connector for both names, while the SBLIBRE adds "les" (to them) and repeats "les dijo" (he said to them), making the double address to both figures more explicit than the Hebrew's structure, which achieves this through the repeated preposition rather than added pronouns.