Leviticus 21:10

Summary

The verse describes the high priest — designated as "great among his brothers" — through two ritual markers of his status: the pouring of anointing oil on his head and the filling of his hand (ordination). It then states two prohibitions specific to him: he must not para ("let loose/unbind", H6544B) his head, nor para ("tear", H6533) his garments.

Key words

• ha-Gadol ("great", H1419A) — masculine singular adjective with definite article, modifying ha-kohen ("the priest", H3548); combined with me-'echav ("more than his brothers", H0251H) it forms a comparative construction, "the priest who is great from among his brothers."
• yutzak ("it was poured", H3332G) — hophal (causative-passive) imperfect: the oil is poured upon him by another's action, not by his own agency; the passive voice removes the actor from the grammar entirely.
• mille' ("he has filled", H4390) — piel (intensive) form, sequential perfect continuing the narrative chain begun with the vav; the idiom mille' et-yad ("fill the hand") functions as a technical expression for ordination/investiture.
• yifra' ("he will let loose", H6544B) — qal imperfect describing an action forbidden to the head (ro'sho, "his head", H7218A); the imperfect here carries prohibitive force alongside lo' ("not", H3808).
• yifrom ("he will tear", H6533) — qal imperfect parallel to yifra', forbidding the same kind of action toward the garments (begadav, "his garments", H0899B).

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence opens by identifying its subject through a chain of qualifying clauses before ever stating the main prohibition. Ha-kohen ha-gadol me-'echav ("the priest, the great one from his brothers") establishes the subject's rank comparatively — he is "great" relative to his brothers, rather than holding an absolute title translated as "high priest." This is followed by two relative clauses introduced by 'asher ("whom", H0834A): one describing the oil poured on his head (hophal, passive — the action's origin is grammatically unspecified), and one describing the filling of his hand (piel, active) to wear the garments (infinitive li-lbosh, "to wear", H3847). Only after this extended subject description does the sentence deliver its two parallel prohibitions, each built as lo' + qal imperfect: the head must not be yifra' and the garments must not be yifrom. The repetition of lo' before each verb creates a balanced structure — object (head/garments), negation, verb — reinforcing the two-fold nature of the restriction.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders yifra' ("let loose", H6544B) with apokidarōsei (uncover/remove the headdress), specifying an action tied to the kidaris (priestly turban) rather than the more general "unbinding" of hair implied by the Hebrew root. The Vulgate similarly renders it discooperiet ("he will uncover"), aligning with the LXX's reading of head-covering rather than hair. The Hebrew mille' et-yado ("filled his hand", H4390) — an idiom for ordination — is expanded in the Vulgate as "cujus manus in sacerdotio consecratae sunt" ("whose hands were consecrated in the priesthood"), making explicit what the Hebrew idiom leaves implicit.