Leviticus 19:2

Summary

Yehovah instructs Moses to speak to the entire assembly of Israel and to relay a command: the people are to be qadosh ("holy", H6918G) because Yehovah their God is himself qadosh. The verse frames holiness as a state Israel must attain, grounded in a stated attribute of the deity.

Key words

• da.Ber ("speak", H1696G) — piel imperative, second person masculine singular; the intensive stem marks direct, emphatic address rather than casual speech.
• 'a.mar.Ta ("you will say", H0559) — qal sequential perfect, continuing the imperative chain begun by da.Ber; grammatically it functions as a second command ("and you shall say") rather than a simple future.
• ke.do.Shim ("holy", H6918G) — masculine plural adjective, agreeing with the plural addressees (the congregation), paired with tih.Yu ("you will be", H1961), a qal imperfect expressing an ongoing or future state.
• ki ("for/because", H3588A) — subordinating particle introducing the causal clause that grounds the command in a stated fact about Yehovah.
• ka.Do.osh ("holy", H6918G) — masculine singular adjective, matching the singular subject 'a.Ni ("I", H0589), contrasting grammatically with the plural ke.do.Shim applied to the people.

What the text says

The verse opens with two sequential verbal commands: da.Ber ("speak") directed at Moses, followed by 'a.mar.Ta ("you will say"), a qal perfect functioning within the imperative sequence to introduce the actual words to be spoken. The audience is specified through a chain of construct nouns — kol ("all", H3605), 'a.Dat ("congregation of", H5712), be.nei-Yis.ra.'El ("sons of Israel", H1121G/H3478) — each word governing the next, producing "all [the] congregation of [the] sons of Israel."

The core statement, qedoshim tihyu ("holy you will be"), uses a plural adjective with a qal imperfect verb, describing a state applying to the whole community addressed as a group. The causal clause introduced by ki ("for", H3588A) shifts to singular grammatical number: qadosh 'ani Yehovah 'elohei-khem ("holy [am] I, Yehovah, your God"), where the adjective qadosh is singular, agreeing with the singular pronoun 'ani. The Hebrew places 'ani ("I") immediately before the divine name Yehovah, and 'elohei-khem ("your God", H0430G plus second-person plural suffix) closes the clause, syntactically binding the deity's attribute to the addressed group via the possessive suffix "your."

Differences between versions

The Hebrew includes kol ("all", H3605) modifying "congregation," matched by the Vulgate's omnem ("all") and the BSB's "whole." The LXX's Swete text, however, renders τῇ συναγωγῇ τῶν υἱῶν Ἰσραὴλ without an equivalent to kol, omitting the "all/whole" qualifier present in the Hebrew and Vulgate. In the closing clause, the Hebrew word order presents 'ani Yehovah 'elohei-khem ("I, Yehovah, your God"), while the LXX reorders this as ἐγὼ ἅγιος Κύριος ὁ θεὸς ὑμῶν, placing "holy" (ἅγιος) directly after "I" and before "Lord," a sequence differing from the Hebrew's placement of qadosh before 'ani.