Leviticus 16:30

Summary

Leviticus 16:30 states that on "this day" atonement is made on behalf of the people, with the purpose of purifying them, so that they become clean from all their sins before Yehovah. The verse links a ritual act of atonement to a resulting state of purity.

Key words

• yekhaPer ("he will make atonement", H3722A) — piel imperfect, third person; the piel stem intensifies the verbal action, and the imperfect aspect marks it as ongoing/future, describing the atoning act performed on the specified day.
• taHer ("purify", H2891) — piel infinitive; expresses purpose ("in order to purify"), attached to the preceding verb of atonement as its goal.
• chaTotei-khem ("your sins", H2403B) — feminine plural construct noun with pronominal suffix; construct form ties it to "all" (kol, H3605), producing the phrase "all of your sins."
• lifNei Yehovah ("before Yehovah", H6440G + H3068G) — construct noun fnei ("face of") plus the divine name; a construct chain literally meaning "to the face of Yehovah," marking the location/context of the purification.
• titHaru ("you will be pure", H2891) — qal imperfect, second person masculine plural; unlike the piel form taHer, this qal form describes the resulting state of the people themselves rather than an action performed upon them.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence opens with the conditional/temporal particle ki ("for," H3588A) combined with va-yom ha-zeh ("on this day," H9003+H3117G+H2088), establishing a specific temporal frame. The main clause verb yekhaper (H3722A) is in the piel stem, third person singular, with no explicit subject stated in this segment — the action of atonement is presented impersonally, occurring "over" or "on behalf of" ('alei-khem, H5921A+H9036) the people. This is followed by the infinitive taher (H2891), forming a purpose clause: the atonement happens "to purify you" ('et-khem, H0853+H9036).

The phrase mi-kol chattotei-khem (H9006+H3605+H2403B+H9026) uses a construct chain — "from all of your-sins" — indicating the comprehensive scope of what is being addressed: "all" your sins, not a partial cleansing. The final clause, lifnei Yehovah titharu (H6440G+H3068G+H2891), shifts the grammatical voice: the earlier piel verb described an action done to the people, while this final qal imperfect verb (titharu, "you will be pure") describes the people's own resulting state, located spatially/relationally "before Yehovah." This grammatical shift from piel (causative/intensive purification performed on the people) to qal (their consequent state of being pure) reflects two distinct verbal stems addressing the same purification but from different grammatical perspectives — an action versus a resulting condition.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders yekhaper as exilasetai ("he will atone"), matching the impersonal third-person form of the Hebrew. The Vulgate shifts this into a noun phrase, expiatio erit ("there will be atonement"), rephrasing the verbal action as a nominal event. Both LXX (katharisthesesthe) and Vulgate (mundabimini) render the final qal verb titharu as passive future ("you will be cleansed/purified"), whereas the Hebrew qal form does not carry an explicit passive marker but expresses the people's own resultant state of purity.