Leviticus 21:12

Summary

This verse states that the high priest must not leave the sanctuary and must not profane the sanctuary of his God, because the anointing oil of his God rests upon him. It closes with the self-identification formula "I am Yehovah."

Key words

• mikDash ("sanctuary", H4720) — appears twice, once absolute (with the article, v.1) and once in construct form ("sanctuary of..."), linking the space directly to "his God."
• yeTze' ("he will go out", H3318G) — qal imperfect, expressing a prohibited future/ongoing action: he is not to go out.
• yechaLel ("he will profane", H2490H) — piel imperfect, the intensive stem marking a deliberate, effectual act of desecration, not merely accidental contact.
• Nezer ("consecration/crown", H5145H) — construct noun opening a chain (nezer... shemen... mishchat...) that piles up genitive relations to describe the anointing oil resting on the priest.
• 'a.Ni / Yehovah ("I" / H0589, H3068G) — the closing self-declaration formula, pronoun plus divine name, used without a verb.

What the text says

The verse is built on two parallel negative clauses joined by ve- ("and"): lo' yeTze' ("he will not go out") and ve-lo' yechaLel ("and he will not profane"), both in the qal/piel imperfect describing continuing prohibitions rather than single events. The second clause takes a direct object marked by 'et (H0853, untranslated) followed by mikDash 'eloHav — "the sanctuary of his God" — a construct chain where 'eloHav ("God", H0430G) is grammatically plural in form (as is common for this divine title) but construes as singular in meaning, with a third-person singular possessive suffix ("his").

The causal clause introduced by ki ("for/because", H3588A) explains the prohibition through a dense construct chain: nezer shemen mishchat 'eloHav — literally "the consecration of the oil of the anointing of his God." Each noun (nezer, shemen, mishchat) stands in construct relation to the next, stacking genitives that Hebrew allows but that translations must unpack with prepositions ("the consecration of the anointing oil of his God"). The phrase 'aLav ("upon him", H5921A + suffix) states that this consecration rests physically/ritually on the priest, syntactically justifying why he cannot leave or profane the sanctuary. The verse ends with the independent pronoun 'aNi followed by the tetragrammaton Yehovah, a verbless self-identification clause common in this text.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the first mikDash as tōn hagiōn ("the holy things," plural) where the Hebrew has a singular "the sanctuary" (ha-mikDash). For the second occurrence, the LXX uses to hēgiasmenon ("the sanctified thing") rather than repeating "sanctuary." The Vulgate restructures the second clause as a purpose clause ("ne polluat sanctuarium Domini," "lest he pollute the sanctuary of the Lord"), and substitutes "Domini" (of the Lord) where the Hebrew has 'eloHav ("of his God"). RV1909 translates Nezer as "corona" ("crown"), while BSB renders it as "consecration" — both stemming from the same Hebrew construct noun H5145.