Leviticus 19:8

Summary

Leviticus 19:8 states that whoever eats the sacrificial portion described in the preceding verses will bear the consequence of that act, because doing so profanes something that belongs to Yehovah. The verse ends by stating that the person responsible will be cut off from their people.

Key words

• 'okhelav ("[those who] eat", H0398) — qal participle, masculine plural construct, carrying an attached pronominal suffix "it" (referring back to the sacrificial matter from prior verses); grammatically it functions as "the eater(s) of it."
• avono ("iniquity", H5771) — masculine singular construct with the suffix "his," forming the phrase "his iniquity," the object that the subject "will bear."
• yissa ("he will bear", H5375) — qal imperfect, indicating an action presented as ongoing or as a general rule rather than a single completed event.
• chillel ("he has profaned", H2490) — piel perfect; the piel stem intensifies the action ("to treat as profane/defile"), and the perfect aspect marks it as a completed act that precedes the bearing of guilt.
• nikhretah ("it will be cut off", H3772) — niphal sequential perfect, feminine, agreeing with nefesh ("person/soul", H5315); the niphal stem marks the action as passive — the person is acted upon, not acting.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built as two linked clauses joined by ki ("for", H3588), a subordinating particle giving the reason for the consequence stated first. The first clause places the participle 'okhelav ("the one eating it") in construct with the following material, and separately attaches "his iniquity" (avono) as the object of yissa ("he will bear"). This construction — participle followed by a distinct object clause — produces the sense "the eater [of it]: his iniquity, he will bear," a common Hebrew pattern where the subject is stated first and the verb's object precedes the verb itself for emphasis.

The reason clause uses the piel perfect chillel ("he has profaned") to describe an intensified, completed violation against qodesh Yehovah ("the holy thing of Yehovah", H6944), marked by the direct object particle 'et. The consequence clause switches to a niphal sequential perfect, nikhretah ("it will be cut off"), agreeing grammatically with the feminine noun nefesh ("the person", H5315), and specifies removal me'ammeiha ("from her kinspeople", H5971) — a construct plural noun with a feminine pronominal suffix matching nefesh.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew participle 'okhelav is plural construct ("eaters of it"), but the LXX renders it with a singular participle (ὁ ἔσθων, "the one eating"), as do the Vulgate (a subject implied by portabitque) and the Spanish/English translations, which read the construction generically as "whoever eats." Conversely, at the end of the verse the Hebrew nikhretah ha-nefesh is singular ("that person will be cut off"), while the LXX shifts to a plural verb and noun, ἐξολεθρευθήσονται αἱ ψυχαί ("the souls will be utterly destroyed"), a grammatical divergence from the Hebrew's singular subject.