Leviticus 24:1

Summary

The verse consists of a single formulaic clause introducing divine speech: Yehovah addresses Moses. It contains no content of its own but functions as the narrative frame that opens a new section of legal or ritual instruction.

Key words

• va ("and", H9001) — narrative vav prefixed to the verb, marking the sentence as a continuation of the ongoing narrative sequence ("and then...").
• yedaBer ("he spoke", H1696G) — piel stem, intensive/factitive form of the verb "to speak," used consistently in the Torah for formal divine speech acts directed at a specific recipient.
• Yehovah ("Yehovah", H3068G) — the divine name, functioning as grammatical subject of the verb.
• 'el ("to", H0413) — preposition marking Moses as the addressee of the speech.
• leMor ("saying", H0559) — qal infinitive construct, introducing the direct discourse that follows; syntactically it signals that what comes next is the verbatim content of what was spoken.

What the text says

The verse is built as a short verbal clause: subject (Yehovah) + verb (yedaBer) + prepositional phrase ('el-Mosheh) + infinitive (leMor). The narrative vav on yedaBer links this sentence to the preceding material as the next event in the sequence of divine communications recorded in the book. The piel stem of dabar ("to speak") is the standard form used throughout the legal sections of the Torah for Yehovah's formal address to Moses, distinguishing it from the simpler qal stem used for ordinary speech between humans elsewhere in the text.

The infinitive leMor ("saying") at the end of the clause is a fixed formula that serves as a verbal "colon" — it does not add semantic content but signals that direct speech is about to follow. This construction (verb of speaking + 'el + addressee + leMor) is highly formulaic and recurs throughout Leviticus and other legal material, marking the boundary between narrative frame and reported divine speech. The grammar itself carries no information about the content of the speech that follows; it only establishes who speaks, to whom, and that a quotation is imminent.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew leMor ("saying") is rendered in the LXX as λέγων (a present participle, "saying") and in the Vulgate as dicens ("saying"), both preserving the same function as a marker introducing direct speech. The Spanish SBLIBRE renders the construction with two finite verbs ("le habló... y le dijo," "spoke to him and said to him"), splitting into two clauses what the Hebrew and the other versions present as a single verb plus infinitive.