Leviticus 21:15

Summary

Leviticus 21:15 continues priestly regulations, stating that a priest is not to profane his offspring among his kin-group, because Yehovah is the one who sets him apart as holy. The verse gives the reason (a causal clause) for restrictions on whom a priest may marry, described in the preceding verses.

Key words

• yechallel ("he will profane", H2490H) — piel imperfect, third-person masculine singular. The piel stem intensifies the action ("to profane/desecrate" rather than a simple weakening), and the imperfect marks it as an ongoing prohibition, reinforced by the preceding negation lo' ("not", H3808).
• zar'o ("his offspring", H2233H) — masculine singular noun in construct form with a pronominal suffix "his" (H9023), meaning "his seed/offspring," the object being protected from profanation.
• 'ammav ("his kinspeoples", H5971B) — masculine plural noun in construct form with the suffix "his." The plural form is notable since the parallel expression elsewhere in Leviticus (e.g., 21:1, 21:4) uses the singular 'am ("people"); here the plural construct appears.
• ki ("for/that", H3588A) — a subordinating particle introducing the causal clause that grounds the prohibition in Yehovah's action.
• meqaddesho ("who sets him apart as holy", H6942G) — piel participle, masculine singular construct, with the suffix "him." The participle presents this sanctifying activity as a continuous, defining role rather than a single past event.

What the text says

The verse is built as two clauses joined by the causal particle ki ("for"). The first clause, velo yechallel zar'o be'ammav ("and he will not profane his offspring among his kinspeoples"), uses the piel imperfect yechallel to express a durative prohibition against an intensified act of profaning, with zar'o as its direct object and be'ammav specifying the social context — "among his kinspeoples" — in which this profanation would occur.

The second clause supplies the grounds for the prohibition: ki ani Yehovah meqaddesho ("for I am Yehovah who sanctifies him"). The personal pronoun ani ("I") is explicitly stated before the divine name, giving emphasis to the subject, and the participle meqaddesho frames Yehovah's sanctifying action as ongoing rather than a completed past event, tied grammatically to the priest through the suffixed "him."

Differences between versions

The Hebrew 'ammav appears in plural construct form ("his kinspeoples"), while the LXX renders it with the singular τῷ λαῷ αὐτοῦ ("in his people") and the Vulgate similarly uses gentis suæ ("of his nation"), both singular. The Spanish RV1909 follows a plural rendering ("sus pueblos"), while SBLIBRE and BSB use singular ("su pueblo," "his people").