Leviticus 21:1

Summary

Yehovah instructs Moses to relay a command to the priests, the descendants of Aaron, concerning ritual defilement through contact with a corpse. The verse sets up a three-tier chain of speech (God to Moses, Moses to priests) before stating the actual prohibition, which begins with the phrase "for a corpse he shall not defile himself among his people."

Key words

• iYomer ("he said", H0559) — qal narrative form, marking the opening of the divine speech-act that structures the whole verse.
• 'eMor ("say", H0559) — the same root as above, now in imperative form, giving Moses a direct command to transmit.
• 'amarTa ("you will say", H0559) — the same root a third time, in sequential perfect, continuing the narrative chain and introducing Moses' own words to the priests.
• Nefesh ("a corpse", H5315M) — feminine singular noun; here used technically for a dead body, though the root more broadly covers "soul," "life," or "person."
• yitaMa' ("he will make himself unclean", H2930A) — hithpael (reflexive/causative-reflexive) imperfect, indicating an action the subject performs upon himself, ongoing or future in aspect.

What the text says

The verse is built on a triple repetition of the root 'amar ("to say", H0559): first as narrative report (iYomer, "he said"), then as imperative addressed to Moses ('eMor, "say"), and finally as a sequential perfect describing what Moses himself must then say ('amarTa, "you will say"). This layered structure encodes a chain of transmission — Yehovah to Moses, Moses to the priests — before the content of the command appears.

The command itself opens with le-Nefesh ("for/regarding a corpse"), placing the object of concern at the front of the clause for emphasis, followed by the negation lo' ("not") and the hithpael verb yitamma' ("he will make himself unclean"). The hithpael form indicates a reflexive process — becoming unclean is presented as something happening to or through the subject, not merely an external state. The final phrase be-'ammav ("among his people") uses the singular pronominal suffix "his," anchoring the rule to each individual priest addressed, even though the priests as a group were just referred to in the plural (ha-kohanim, "the priests," H3548, plural).

Differences between versions

The Hebrew nefesh ("corpse", H5315M) is singular, but the LXX renders it with the plural "ψυχαῖς" (souls/bodies), and the Vulgate uses "mortibus" (deaths, plural) — both versions generalizing what the Hebrew states in the singular. The LXX also uses a passive plural verb, "οὐ μιανθήσονται" ("they shall not be defiled"), whereas the Hebrew hithpael yitamma' is singular and reflexive ("he shall not defile himself"). The Vulgate explicitly inserts "sacerdos" ("priest") as the subject of the clause, a word not present at this point in the Hebrew text, which relies on the earlier reference to "the priests" for context.