Leviticus 23:35

Summary

Leviticus 23:35 designates the first day of a festival period as a day marked by a miqra qodesh ("a convocation of holiness", H4744/H6944) and prohibits kol-melekhet avodah ("any work of servitude", H4399/H5656) on that day. The verse uses a nominal construction without an explicit verb "to be", followed by a direct prohibition in the second person plural.

Key words

• bayyom ("in the day", H3117) — noun with prefixed preposition and article, setting the temporal frame "on the day."
• ha-rishon ("the first", H7223) — ordinal adjective agreeing with yom in gender and definiteness, specifying which day.
• miqra-qodesh ("convocation of holiness", H4744 + H6944) — construct chain; miqra governs qodesh as a genitive, literally "a calling-together of holiness," with no linking verb supplied in Hebrew.
• melekhet avodah ("work of servitude", H4399 + H5656) — construct chain where melekhet ("work of") governs avodah ("servitude"), together forming a category of labor being restricted.
• ta'asu ("you will do", H6213) — qal imperfect, second person masculine plural, expressing an ongoing or future prohibition when combined with the negation lo (H3808).

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence opens with a prepositional phrase, bayyom harishon ("on the first day"), which sets the temporal scope before any verb appears. The core designation of the day, miqra-qodesh, is a construct noun phrase — there is no copula ("is/shall be") in the Hebrew text itself; the phrase simply stands as an appositional description of the day, literally "a convocation of holiness," without specifying whether it is declared, called, or simply exists as such.

The second half of the verse forms a distinct clause: kol-melekhet avodah lo ta'asu ("any work of servitude you will not do"). Here melekhet avodah is itself a construct chain, stacking two nouns to specify a particular category of labor — "work" that is further qualified by "servitude." The negation lo precedes the qal imperfect verb ta'asu, producing a direct plural prohibition addressed to the community. The imperfect aspect allows this to function as a general or repeated instruction rather than a single one-time event.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the first clause as a full sentence with the verbal notion "ἡ ἡμέρα ἡ πρώτη κλητὴ ἁγία" ("the first day [is] a holy called [day]"), adding the connective καὶ ("and") absent from the Hebrew construct phrase. The Vulgate goes further, supplying an explicit future-passive verb, vocabitur ("will be called"), and intensifies the description with celeberrimus atque sanctissimus ("most celebrated and most holy"), where the Hebrew has only the compact noun phrase miqra-qodesh. For melekhet avodah, the LXX uses ἔργον λατρευτὸν ("work pertaining to service/cultic labor"), while modern translations such as BSB ("regular work") and SBLIBRE ("trabajo habitual," "habitual work") diverge from RV1909's "obra servil" ("servile work"), reflecting differing interpretations of what avodah ("servitude", H5656) specifies about the type of labor restricted.