Leviticus 21:13

Summary

Leviticus 21:13 states that "he" (the priest referred to in the surrounding legal context) must take "a woman" specifically "in her virginities," using the verb yiqqach ("he will take", H3947I). The Hebrew phrasing emphasizes the state of the woman at the time of the marriage.

Key words

• Hu' ("he", H1931) — an independent personal pronoun placed before the verb, giving emphasis to the subject performing the action.
• 'ishah ("a woman", H0802H) — feminine singular noun, the direct object of the marriage action.
• vtuleiha ("virginities of her", H1331) — masculine plural noun in construct form with a pronominal suffix; the plural form modifies "woman" via the preposition vi ("in", H9003).
• yiqqach ("he will take", H3947I) — Qal imperfect, third person masculine singular, denoting future or continuing action from the root meaning "to take."

What the text says

The Hebrew clause is built as: conjunction ve ("and") + pronoun Hu' ("he") + noun 'ishah ("a woman") + prepositional phrase bi-vtuleiha ("in her virginities") + verb yiqqach ("he will take"). The placement of the independent pronoun Hu' before the object and verb is a common feature of Biblical Hebrew syntax used to mark or emphasize the subject, distinguishing this clause from a simple verb-subject-object order.

The phrase bi-vtuleiha is grammatically distinctive: vtulei (H1331) appears in its plural construct form, attached to the third-person feminine singular suffix ha ("her"), and governed by the preposition vi ("in"). This construction — "in her virginities" — describes the condition or state accompanying the woman at the moment the action denoted by yiqqach takes place. The verb itself, yiqqach, is in the Qal imperfect, which in Biblical Hebrew typically expresses future, habitual, or modal (obligatory) action — here functioning within a legal/prescriptive context.

Differences between versions

The LXX (Septuagint) renders the clause as parthenon ek tou genous autou ("a virgin from his own kin/lineage"), introducing the concept of "kin" or "lineage" (genos), which has no direct lexical counterpart in the Hebrew text's bi-vtuleiha ("in her virginities"). The Hebrew phrase focuses on the state of virginity itself, while the Greek phrase shifts emphasis toward the woman's family origin.

The Vulgate reads Virginem ducet uxorem ("He shall take a virgin as wife"), simplifying the Hebrew's plural construct noun vtulei into the single noun virginem ("virgin"), and omitting the pronominal and prepositional structure present in the Hebrew (bi...ha, "in her...").