Leviticus 19:12

Summary

The verse prohibits swearing an oath by the divine name for the purpose of falsehood, and states that doing so profanes the name of God. It closes with the self-identifying formula "I am Yehovah."

Key words

• tishave'u ("you will swear an oath", H7650) — niphal imperfect, 2nd person masculine plural; the niphal stem marks the act of oath-swearing as a self-binding action, and the plural addresses the community as a group.
• shem ("name", H8034) — masculine singular construct, appearing twice (lines 5 and 12), each time governing a following genitive ("my name" / "name of your God").
• shaqer ("falsehood", H8267) — masculine singular noun preceded by la ("to the", H9005 + article), specifying the purpose or result of the oath: swearing "for/into falsehood."
• chilalta ("you will profane", H2490H) — piel sequential perfect, 2nd person masculine singular; the piel stem intensifies the verb, and the perfect with vav continues the preceding clause as a following action, while the person shifts from plural to singular.
• Elohei-kha ("your God", H0430G + H9021) — masculine plural noun (a common form used for the divine name) in construct with a 2nd person masculine singular suffix, "your" now singular.

What the text says

The verse opens with a plural prohibition: lo tishave'u ("you will not swear," H3808 + H7650), addressed to the community as a whole ("you all"). The niphal form of shava frames oath-taking as an act that binds the speaker, "by my name" (vi-shemi, H9003 + H8034 + H9020), for the stated purpose "to the falsehood" (la-shaqer, H9005 + H8267) — that is, an oath sworn with false intent or content.

The clause then shifts grammatically: instead of a second parallel prohibition, the Hebrew uses ve-chilalta ("and you will profane," H9001 + H2490H), a piel sequential perfect in the singular. This creates a sequence in which the false oath (plural subject) leads to profaning "the name of your God" (singular subject, shem Elohekha). The construct chains shem...+ suffix appear twice, first for "my name" (the speaker's own name) and second for "name of your God," maintaining lexical repetition of shem (H8034) while varying the possessor.

The closing formula, ani Yehovah ("I [am] Yehovah," H0589 + H3068G), lacks a copula in Hebrew; the pronoun and the divine name stand in apposition, a formula recurring after several commands in this chapter.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew ve-chilalta ("and you will profane," H2490H) is a positive sequential perfect describing profanation as a consequence of the false oath. Both the LXX (καὶ οὐ βεβηλώσετε, "and you shall not profane") and the Vulgate (nec pollues, "nor shall you pollute") render this instead as a second negative prohibition, parallel to the first, rather than as a resulting action. The Hebrew grammatical shift from plural (oath-swearers) to singular (profaner) is not preserved distinctly in the Greek or Latin, which maintain plural address throughout in the case of LXX or singular throughout in the Vulgate.