Leviticus 16:29

Summary

Leviticus 16:29 establishes a perpetual statute (chuqqat olam, H2708/H5769G) tied to a fixed calendar date — the tenth day of the seventh month — on which the community must "afflict" or "humble" themselves and abstain from all work. The command explicitly extends to both the native-born and the resident foreigner.

Key words

• ha.ye.Tah ("it will become", H1961) — qal sequential perfect, continuing the narrative chain from the preceding verses; establishes this instruction as the next link in a legal sequence rather than a new independent command.
• chu.Kat ("a statute of", H2708) — feminine singular construct, grammatically bound to o.Lam ("perpetuity", H5769G); the construct chain literally reads "a statute of perpetuity," i.e., an enduring legal fixture rather than a one-time event.
• te.'a.Nu ("you will afflict", H6031B) — piel (intensive) imperfect, second person masculine plural; the piel stem intensifies the root's basic sense, and the imperfect gives it ongoing/future obligatory force ("you shall afflict/humble yourselves").
• naf.sho.tei.Khem ("your selves", H5315I + H9026) — feminine plural construct noun with pronominal suffix; nefesh here denotes the self or person as the object of the affliction, not merely "soul" in an abstract sense.
• ta.'a.Su ("you will do", H6213A) — qal imperfect, second person masculine plural, negated by lo' ("not", H3808); forms the second prohibition of the verse, parallel in structure to the first command.

What the text says

The verse opens with a narrative vav plus the sequential perfect ha.ye.Tah, signaling continuation from prior legislation (the Day of Atonement rites described earlier in the chapter) rather than introducing a new topic. The phrase le-chuqqat olam uses a construct chain — "for a statute of perpetuity" — placing emphasis on durability: the instruction is not tied to a single occasion but recurs annually, anchored by the temporal phrase "in the seventh month, on the tenth of the month" (ba-chodesh ha-shevi'i be-'asor la-chodesh).

The core obligations are expressed through two parallel imperfect verbs, both second-person masculine plural: te'annu ("you will afflict," piel) governing the direct object et nafshoteikhem ("your selves"), and lo' ta'asu ("you will not do") governing khol melakhah ("any work"). The piel stem of te'annu intensifies the root beyond a simple state, suggesting an active, deliberate act performed upon oneself rather than something merely experienced. The clause closes by extending the scope of the command through two appositional phrases, ha-ezrach ("the native-born," H0249) and ha-ger ha-gar be-tokhkhem ("the sojourner who sojourns in your midst"), the latter using a participle (gar) that describes an ongoing state of residence.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders te'annu ("you will afflict," H6031B) as ταπεινώσατε ("humble"), an aorist imperative rather than the Hebrew imperfect, shifting the verbal aspect from ongoing future obligation to a direct command. The Vulgate's affligetis ("you will afflict") preserves the future/imperfect sense closer to the Hebrew. The SBLIBRE Spanish translation renders the same verb as "ayunarán" ("you will fast"), interpreting the intensive affliction as fasting specifically, a specification not explicit in the Hebrew te'annu itself, which denotes "afflict/humble" without naming the specific act.