Leviticus 23:31

Summary

The verse prohibits any form of labor, establishing this prohibition as a permanent statute binding across generations and in every place where the people reside.

Key words

• me.la.Khah ("work", H4399) — feminine singular noun, the object of the prohibition; a general term for labor/occupation, not restricted to a specific type of task.
• ta.'a.Su ("you will do", H6213A) — qal imperfect, 2nd person masculine plural; the imperfect form here carries a prohibitive/future-directive force combined with the preceding negation lo' ("not", H3808), producing a durative command ("you shall not do") rather than a one-time instruction.
• chu.Kat ("a statute of", H2708) — feminine singular construct noun, linking to o.Lam ("perpetuity", H5769G) to form the phrase "a statute of perpetuity," marking the ongoing legal validity of the prohibition.
• do.Ro.tei.Khem ("your generations", H1755 + H9026) — feminine plural construct noun with 2nd person masculine plural suffix, extending the statute's application beyond the immediate audience to their descendants.
• Mo.she.Vo.tei.Khem ("your dwelling places", H4186 + H9026) — feminine plural construct noun with suffix, indicating geographic universality: the statute applies regardless of location.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence opens with the object-first construction kol-me.la.Khah lo' ta.'a.Su ("any work you will not do"), placing emphasis on the totality of the prohibited category before the verb itself. The construct chain kol ("any", H3605) plus me.la.Khah ("work", H4399) signals that the prohibition covers every type of labor without exception, not a limited subset.

The second half of the verse shifts from prohibition to legal classification: chu.Kat o.Lam ("a statute of perpetuity") functions as a predicate nominative describing the nature of the preceding command — it is not merely a one-time instruction but a fixed legal category. This is further qualified by two prepositional phrases using le- ("to", H9005) and be- ("in", H9003): the first extends the statute temporally across do.Ro.tei.Khem ("your generations"), the second extends it spatially across kol Mo.she.Vo.tei.Khem ("all your dwelling places"). Both phrases use construct nouns with 2nd person plural suffixes, grammatically tying the statute's scope directly to the addressed community and their descendants, regardless of temporal or geographic distance from the original utterance.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders be-khol Mo.she.Vo.tei.Khem ("in all your dwelling places") with ἐν πόσαις κατοικίαις ὑμῶν, using πόσαις ("however many," interrogative/indefinite in form) rather than a direct equivalent of "all" (πάσαις), which may reflect a textual or translational variant in the Greek tradition. The Vulgate's in cunctis generationibus, et habitationibus vestris reorders the Hebrew's two prepositional phrases, listing "generations" and "dwellings" as a single conjoined pair rather than preserving the Hebrew's distinct le-/be- structure.