Leviticus 22:32

Summary

The verse issues a prohibition against profaning the divine name and states the corresponding requirement that God be recognized as holy among the Israelites. It closes with a self-identification formula naming Yehovah as the one who sanctifies the people.

Key words

• techalelu ("you will profane", H2490) — piel imperfect, 2nd person masculine plural; the piel stem intensifies the action, marking a deliberate or repeated violation, and the imperfect points to an ongoing prohibition ("you must not, ever, profane").
• shem qodshi ("name of my holiness", H8034 + H6944) — a construct chain literally "name of my holiness," rendered idiomatically as "my holy name"; the construct places shem ("name") in dependent relation to qodesh ("holiness").
• niqdashti ("I will show myself holy", H6942) — niphal, sequential perfect, 1st person singular; the niphal stem is passive/reflexive, so the subject (Yehovah) is the one becoming sanctified in the eyes of others, not the one performing the sanctifying action directly.
• benei Yisra'el ("sons/people of Israel", H1121 + H3478) — construct chain identifying the group among whom the sanctification is to be recognized.
• meqadishkhem ("the one who sets you apart as holy", H6942) — piel participle with pronominal suffix "you (pl.)"; the participle expresses an ongoing characteristic action ("the one who sanctifies"), distinct from the niphal form used earlier for Yehovah's own status.

What the text says

The sentence opens with a negated piel imperfect, techalelu, governing the object shem qodshi — "the name of my holiness." The construct chain shem qodshi ties "name" directly to "holiness" rather than using an adjective, so the Hebrew syntax presents holiness as a possessed quality of the name itself, not merely a descriptive attribute.

The clause continues with a vav-consecutive perfect, niqdashti, which sequences logically from the prohibition: because the name must not be profaned, the corresponding state — Yehovah being treated as holy — follows among "the sons of Israel." The niphal form makes Yehovah grammatically passive/reflexive in this action, meaning the text presents recognition of holiness as something enacted through the community's behavior, not an action Yehovah performs on himself independently of them.

The final clause shifts stem: meqadishkhem is a piel participle, active and ongoing, contrasting with the earlier niphal. The same root (qadash, "to be holy/sanctify") appears in three different stems within one verse — piel (profane's opposite intensively), niphal (Yehovah's passive holiness-recognition), and piel participle again (Yehovah's active sanctifying of the people) — showing the root's range across grammatical voices within a single utterance.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders shem qodshi ("name of my holiness") as τὸ ὄνομα τοῦ ἁγίου ("the name of the Holy One"), shifting the construct from a possessive genitive on "name" to treating "holy" as a substantive title. The Vulgate's nomen meum sanctum ("my holy name") stays closer to the Hebrew's implied sense of "my holy name." For niqdashti, the LXX's ἁγιασθήσομαι ("I will be sanctified") reflects the niphal's passive sense directly, while the Vulgate's ut sanctificer ("so that I may be sanctified") adds an explicit purpose nuance not grammatically marked in the Hebrew vav-consecutive construction.