Leviticus 22:31

Summary

The verse commands the addressees to keep and perform the divine commandments, closing with a self-identification formula in which the speaker names himself as Yehovah. The sentence is structured as two sequential verbal actions followed by a short declarative clause.

Key words

• shemartem ("you will keep", H8104G) — qal sequential perfect, 2nd person masculine plural; continues a preceding sequence of instructions, expressing an expected future/ongoing action of "keeping."
• mitzvotai ("my commandments", H4687) — feminine plural noun in construct form with the 1st person suffix -i ("my"), marking the commandments as belonging to the speaker.
• va'asitem ("and you will do", H6213A) — qal sequential perfect, 2nd person masculine plural, paired with shemartem to form a two-part action: keeping and doing.
• otam ("them", H0853 + H9038) — the direct object marker et carrying the 3rd person masculine plural suffix, referring back to mitzvotai.
• YHWH ("Yehovah", H3068G) — the divine name, here used in apposition to ani ("I", H0589) to form the self-identification formula.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence opens with a narrative vav (H9001) attached to shemartem, linking this verse to what precedes it as a continuation of a discourse rather than an isolated command. The verb form is a sequential perfect (vav-consecutive perfect), a construction that in this context carries future or injunctive force — "you will keep" — while grammatically building on a preceding verbal chain. The same pattern repeats with va'asitem, joined by another narrative vav, producing a doublet: "keep" (shemartem) and "do" (va'asitem). The object of both verbs is mitzvotai, "my commandments," a feminine plural construct noun bearing the 1st person suffix, and this same object is picked up again by the pronoun suffix on otam ("them"), reinforcing the referent through repetition rather than introducing new content.

The final clause, ani YHWH, consists of the independent pronoun ani ("I", H0589) placed before the divine name YHWH (H3068G), without any linking verb — Biblical Hebrew regularly omits "to be" in the present tense. This produces a nominal (verbless) sentence functioning as a self-identification formula, structurally separate from the two preceding verbal clauses.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew text names two objects explicitly: mitzvotai ("my commandments") as object of "keep," and otam ("them") as object of "do." The LXX (Swete) renders tas mou — a shortened phrase apparently presupposing "commandments" — for the first verb, and autas ("them," feminine) for the second, paralleling the Hebrew doubling. The Vulgate uses mandata mea ("my commandments") and ea ("them"), maintaining the same two-part structure. All three witnesses preserve the double verb ("keep and do") and the closing self-identification, though the LXX's shorter phrasing for the first object noun does not spell out "commandments" as fully as the Hebrew or Vulgate.