Leviticus 18:25

Summary

The verse describes a three-stage sequence: the land became ritually unclean, God addressed its iniquity, and the land expelled its inhabitants by vomiting them out. The three actions are chained with the narrative vav, presenting them as sequential consequences.

Key words

• titma ("it became unclean", H2930A) — qal narrative form, subject "she" (the land); a simple, non-causative verb describing a state the land entered into.
• avonah ("its iniquity", H5771G) — construct noun with pronominal suffix "her", meaning "the iniquity belonging to it/her" (referring back to the land).
• efqod ("I visited/punished", H6485H) — qal narrative, first-person "I"; the verb H6485 covers a range of meanings from "to visit" to "to reckon/punish," depending on context.
• taqi ("it vomited up", H6958) — hiphil (causative) narrative form, subject "she" (the land); the causative stem intensifies the action beyond a simple qal "vomit," suggesting the land actively expels rather than merely emits.
• yoshvei ("inhabitants", H3427) — qal participle, masculine plural, construct form ("the ones dwelling of..."); grammatically tied to the following pronominal suffix "her" (the land), meaning "her inhabitants."

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence moves through three narrative-vav clauses, each advancing the storyline: the land becomes unclean (titma), the speaker addresses "her iniquity" upon her (efqod ... avonah ... aleha), and the land vomits out (taqi, hiphil) "the inhabitants of her" (et-yoshvei-ha). The construct chain in yoshvei-ha ties the participle "inhabitants" directly to the land via the possessive suffix, framing them grammatically as belonging to the land rather than as independent agents. The hiphil stem of taqi marks this vomiting as a deliberate, caused action rather than a passive or spontaneous occurrence, a nuance not always visible in translation when rendered simply as "vomited."

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the opening verb with a passive, ἐμιάνθη ("was defiled"), where the Hebrew titma is an active qal form ("it became unclean") without a passive sense. For the second clause, the LXX reads ἀνταπέδωκα αὐτοῖς ἀδικίαν δι' αὐτήν ("I repaid to them iniquity because of it/her"), shifting the object from "her iniquity" (the land's, per the Hebrew avonah) to "them" (the inhabitants), altering who receives the recompense. For the third clause, the LXX uses προσώχθισεν ("was aggrieved/loathed") instead of a vomiting image, diverging from the Hebrew taqi ("vomited"). The Vulgate's evomat ("vomit") matches the Hebrew's imagery here, unlike the LXX's different verb choice.