Leviticus 20:7

Summary

Leviticus 20:7 issues a command to the addressees (grammatically plural, masculine) to sanctify themselves and be holy, grounding this instruction in a self-identification formula where Yehovah states that he is their God.

Key words

• Hitkaddishtem ("you will keep yourselves holy", H6942G) — hithpael (reflexive) stem, sequential perfect, 2nd person masculine plural. The hithpael form indicates the subject acts upon itself: the action of sanctifying is directed back at the addressees themselves.
• vihyitem ("you will be", H1961) — qal (simple) stem, sequential perfect, 2nd person masculine plural. This verb chains onto the previous one via the narrative vav, forming a two-part sequence: first the reflexive action, then the resulting state.
• qedoshim ("holy", H6918G) — masculine plural adjective, agreeing in number and gender with the plural addressees, functioning as the predicate complement of vihyitem.
• ki ("for", H3588A) — a particle that can function as subordinating ("that") or conditional/causal ("for", "if"), here introducing the clause that grounds the preceding commands.
• Elohei ("God", H0430G) — construct form (masculine plural noun in construct state), linked to the suffix -khem ("your") to form "God of you all", i.e., "your God".

What the text says

The verse opens with a narrative vav (H9001) attached twice, chaining two sequential perfect verbs: hitkaddishtem and vihyitem. Both verbs are 2nd person masculine plural, addressing a collective audience. The first verb uses the hithpael stem, a reflexive construction, meaning the subject performs the action of sanctification on itself rather than receiving it passively or performing it on another. The second verb, vihyitem, is a plain qal form of "to be," followed by the plural adjective qedoshim, which agrees grammatically with the subject. This creates a two-stage structure: an action verb followed by a resulting state.

The clause introduced by ki connects to what precedes it, providing a basis for the command. Within this clause, the pronoun ani ("I", H0589) precedes the divine name Yehovah (H3068G), followed by Elohei in construct form with the suffix -khem. The construct chain Elohei-khem literally reads "God-of-you-all," a common Hebrew possessive construction where the construct noun and its dependent pronoun combine into a single phrase.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the causal clause as ὅτι ἅγιος ἐγὼ Κύριος ὁ θεὸς ὑμῶν ("for holy [am] I, the Lord your God"), inserting the adjective ἅγιος ("holy") that has no equivalent in the Hebrew clause at this point — the Hebrew ki clause states only "I am Yehovah your God" without repeating the term "holy." The Vulgate follows the Hebrew structure more closely with "quia ego sum Dominus Deus vester" ("because I am the Lord your God"), omitting the additional "holy" found in the LXX.