Leviticus 21:4

Summary

The verse states that a priest (subject implied from the surrounding legal context) is not to make himself ritually unclean, using the term ba'al ("husband/chief", H1167H) in relation to his kin-group, resulting in his own profanation. The syntax builds a purpose clause: avoiding defilement leads to avoiding self-profanation.

Key words

• yitamma ("he will make himself unclean", H2930A) — Hithpael imperfect, a reflexive verb form indicating the subject is the agent acting upon himself, not simply becoming unclean passively.
• ba'al ("a husband", H1167H) — masculine singular noun; the specific Strong number here marks a distinct semantic range that can denote "husband," "master," or "chief/leader," creating lexical ambiguity central to how this verse is understood.
• 'ammav ("his kinspeople", H5971B + H9023) — masculine plural construct noun with 3ms suffix, meaning "his peoples" or "his kin," anchoring the ba'al to a specific in-group relation.
• le-hechallo ("to profane himself", H2490H) — Niphal infinitive with pronominal suffix, expressing a passive/reflexive profanation that results from or accompanies the uncleanness stated in the main clause.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is short and tightly built: negation (lo) + reflexive verb (yitamma) + subject noun (ba'al) + prepositional phrase (be-'ammav) + purpose infinitive (le-hechallo). The grammatical structure presents the defilement and the profanation as two linked reflexive actions performed by the same subject — the Hithpael and Niphal forms both point back to the subject rather than describing an external cause.

The central interpretive issue is the noun ba'al (H1167H). Its base meaning covers "husband," "master," and "chief/leader." Combined with 'ammav ("his kinspeople/peoples"), the phrase can be read either as "a husband among his kin" (a marital-relation reading) or "a chief/leader among his people" (a status-based reading). The Hebrew word-by-word data does not resolve this ambiguity; grammar alone (masculine singular noun + construct plural with suffix) permits both.

Differences between versions

The LXX (Swete) renders the clause with ἐξάπινα ("suddenly"), a word with no equivalent among the Hebrew items listed, and does not translate ba'al as "leader" or "husband" explicitly — it reads "he will not be defiled suddenly among his people, unto his profanation." The Vulgate reads in principe populi sui ("among the prince/leader of his people"), following the "chief/leader" sense of ba'al. Among the modern versions, RV1909 and SBLIBRE follow this "leader" reading ("príncipe," "líder"), while the BSB follows the "husband/marriage relation" reading ("those related to him by marriage"). The Hebrew data itself, isolated from these versions, does not indicate which sense of ba'al is intended.