Leviticus 23:7

Summary

Leviticus 23:7 designates the first day of a festival period as a day marked by a miqra qodesh ("convocation of holiness", H4744/H6944G) and prohibits a specific category of labor, melekhet avodah ("work of servitude", H4399/H5656I), on that day.

Key words

• ba-yom ha-rishon — yom ("day", H3117G) with the definite article ha- (H9009) and the ordinal rishon ("first", H7223G): the preposition ba (H9003) fixes the temporal setting, "on the first day," as the frame for what follows.
• miqra ("convocation of", H4744) — masculine singular construct noun, meaning it must be linked to the following noun qodesh; grammatically it does not stand alone but forms a bound phrase, "a convocation of holiness."
• qodesh ("holiness", H6944G) — the absolute noun completing the construct chain begun by miqra; together they function as a single conceptual unit rather than "convocation" and "holy" as separate adjectives.
• yihyeh ("it will be", H1961) — qal imperfect, third person masculine singular, agreeing grammatically with miqra (a masculine noun); the imperfect aspect expresses an ongoing or repeated obligation rather than a single past event.
• ta'asu ("you will do", H6213A) — qal imperfect, second person masculine plural, negated by lo (H3808); the plural addresses the community collectively, and the imperfect again signals a standing prohibition rather than a one-time command.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence has two clauses joined without a conjunction. The first clause places miqra qodesh as the grammatical subject of yihyeh, with lakem ("to you", H9005+H9036) indicating the beneficiary or addressee of the state described — literally "a convocation of holiness will be to you," rendered in English as "you shall have/hold." The construct relationship between miqra (H4744) and qodesh (H6944G) means these two words are grammatically inseparable in Hebrew; miqra by itself would be incomplete, requiring qodesh to specify what kind of convocation is meant.

The second clause reverses the normal object-verb order, placing kol-melekhet avodah ("any work of servitude") before the negated verb ta'asu. This fronting places emphasis on the object being prohibited. Melekhet (H4399) is itself a construct noun bound to avodah (H5656I), so the phrase designates a specific subset of labor — "work of servitude" — rather than labor in general, a distinction the construct grammar encodes but which single-word translations like "work" alone would not convey.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders miqra qodesh as κλητὴ ἁγία ("holy called-assembly"), splitting the Hebrew construct into two adjectives modifying ἡμέρα ("day") rather than treating "convocation" and "holiness" as a bound phrase attached to yihyeh. The Vulgate uses celeberrimus ("most celebrated/crowded") for the convocation concept and sanctus ("holy") as a separate quality of the day itself, differing from the Hebrew's single construct expression. For melekhet avodah, the LXX has ἔργον λατρευτόν ("work pertaining to service/cult"), and the Vulgate has opus servile ("servile work"), both offering single-phrase equivalents for what the Hebrew expresses through a two-noun construct chain.