Leviticus 19:28

Summary

The verse prohibits two body modifications connected with death or mourning: making a Seret ("cut", H8296A) on account of Nefesh ("a corpse", H5315M), and marking a khetoevet qa'aqa' ("inscription of an incision", H3793/H7085) on the skin. The verse closes with the self-identification formula 'ani Yehovah ("I [am] Yehovah", H0589/H3068G).

Key words

• Seret ("cut[s]", H8296A) — masculine singular noun naming the physical action prohibited, paired with the prepositional phrase that follows.
• la-Nefesh (H9005 + H5315M) — the preposition la ("for") attached to Nefesh ("a corpse"); here Nefesh denotes a dead body, not "soul" in the abstract sense, giving the cutting its funerary context.
• titeNu ("you will make", H5414I/H5414P) — qal imperfect, 2nd person masculine plural, repeated twice; the imperfect form frames the prohibition as an ongoing or future restriction applying to the whole addressed group.
• kheTOevet qa'aKa' ("inscription of an incision", H3793 construct + H7085) — a construct chain literally "writing of an incision," describing a mark cut or etched into the skin.
• bi-vsarKHem / baKHem (H1320+H9026 / H9003+H9036) — "in your flesh" versus "in yourselves," two slightly different prepositional targets for the two prohibited acts, the first specifying the flesh, the second the person more generally.

What the text says

The verse is built as two parallel prohibitions, each following the same syntactic pattern: object phrase + negation lo' (H3808) + verb titeNu (H5414, qal imperfect 2mp) + prepositional phrase. The first clause names Seret ("cut[s]", H8296A) done la-Nefesh ("for a corpse", H5315M) and forbids doing this bi-vsarKHem ("in your flesh", H1320 construct + H9026 suffix). The second clause names khetoevet qa'aqa' ("inscription of an incision", H3793/H7085), a construct pairing that describes a cut or etched mark, and forbids placing it baKHem ("in yourselves", H9003+H9036). The repetition of the verb titeNu in identical grammatical form (qal imperfect, 2mp) across both clauses ties the two acts together as a single category of prohibited bodily marking, while the shift from "in your flesh" to "in yourselves" marks a subtle broadening of scope in the second clause. The verse ends with the formula 'ani Yehovah ("I [am] Yehovah", H0589/H3068G), a self-identification without additional verb, functioning as a closing tag attached to the legal statement.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the closing formula as "ἐγώ εἰμι Κύριος ὁ θεὸς ὑμῶν" ("I am the Lord your God"), adding "your God" where the Hebrew has only 'ani Yehovah ("I [am] Yehovah"). The Vulgate renders la-Nefesh ("for a corpse") as "super mortuo" ("over/for the dead one"), consistent with the funerary sense, and translates khetoevet qa'aqa' more expansively as "figuras aliquas aut stigmata" ("any figures or marks"), where the Hebrew has a single construct phrase for one type of mark.