Leviticus 18:2

Summary

Leviticus 18:2 opens with a divine command to Moses to speak to the Israelites, followed by a self-declaration formula in which the deity identifies himself as "Yehovah your God." This verse functions as an introductory frame before the legal material that follows in the chapter.

Key words

• da.Ber ("speak", H1696G) — piel imperative, giving urgency and intensity to the command directed at Moses.
• bene ("the people of", H1121G) — masculine plural construct, linking directly to Yisra'El to form "the people of Israel."
• 'a.mar.Ta ("you will say", H0559) — qal sequential perfect, continuing the narrative chain begun by the imperative da.Ber, indicating a second action to follow the first.
• 'a.Ni ("I", H0589) — independent personal pronoun, placed before the divine name for emphasis, marking the self-identification formula.
• 'e.lo.hei.Khem ("your God", H0430G + H9026) — masculine plural construct noun with second-person plural suffix, forming the possessive phrase "your God."

What the text says

The verse divides into two grammatical movements. The first is a command structure: da.Ber ("speak", H1696G) as a piel imperative addressed to Moses, followed by the prepositional phrase 'el- bene Yisra'El ("to the people of Israel", H0413 + H1121G + H3478). The piel stem of da.Ber carries an intensive nuance compared to the simple qal form, framing this as a formal directive rather than casual speech.

The second movement begins with the vav-conjunction attached to 'a.mar.Ta ("and you will say", H9001 + H0559), a qal sequential perfect that continues the action initiated by the imperative — grammatically, this construction (imperative + vav + perfect) creates a chain where the second verb inherits the imperative force of the first. This is followed by 'a.le.Hem ("to them", H0413 + H9038), specifying the addressees.

The content of the speech itself is the formula 'a.Ni Yehovah 'e.lo.hei.Khem ("I am Yehovah your God"). The pronoun 'a.Ni ("I", H0589) stands independently before the divine name Yehovah (H3068G), a construction that in Biblical Hebrew places emphasis on the subject through the explicit use of the pronoun rather than relying solely on verbal conjugation (since Hebrew verbs already encode person). The final word 'e.lo.hei.Khem combines the construct noun 'elohei ("God of", H0430G) with the second-person masculine plural suffix -khem ("your", H9026), producing "your God" as a possessive relationship binding the deity to the addressed community.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders 'a.mar.Ta ("you will say") as ἐρεῖς, a future indicative rather than reflecting the Hebrew's sequential perfect construction tied to the imperative chain. The Vulgate's dices similarly uses a future form. Both LXX and Vulgate translate 'a.Ni Yehovah as "Ego... Dominus/κύριος," following the common convention of rendering the divine name Yehovah (H3068G) as "Lord" rather than transliterating it.