Leviticus 24:16

Summary

Leviticus 24:16 establishes that anyone who slanders or curses the name of Yehovah must be put to death by stoning, carried out by the entire congregation. The verse explicitly states this law applies equally to the foreign resident and the native-born, and repeats the death sentence at the close.

Key words

• noKev ("[one who] slanders", H5344B) — qal participle, masculine singular, describing the agent as one habitually or presently performing the act of slandering/blaspheming the name.
• Mot yuMat ("certainly he will be put to death", H4191) — infinitive absolute followed by hophal imperfect; the doubled construction intensifies the certainty of the causative-passive verb "to be put to death."
• raGom yirgeMu ("certainly they will stone", H7275) — infinitive absolute + qal imperfect (third person plural), similarly emphasizing certainty of the collective action "they will stone."
• ka.Ger ka.'ezRach ("as the sojourner, as the native-born", H1616 / H0249) — two construct phrases with the definite article, placing the ger ("sojourner") and 'ezrach ("native-born") in explicit parallel.
• be.nakvo-shem ("when he slanders the name", H5344B + H8034) — qal infinitive with pronominal suffix ("his slandering") plus construct noun "name," forming a subordinate temporal clause that reiterates the offense before the final verdict.

What the text says

The verse opens with a participial construction, ve.noKev shem-Yehovah — literally "and the one slandering the name of Yehovah" — which functions as the subject of the sentence, identifying the offender by his action rather than by a fixed legal title. The verdict follows in two parallel infinitive-absolute + finite-verb pairs: Mot yuMat ("dying he will be put to death") and raGom yirgeMu ("stoning they will stone"). This doubling, a common feature of Biblical Hebrew legal style, does not add new information but intensifies the certainty of the outcome — the death is certain, the stoning is certain.

The subject of the stoning is specified as kol-ha'edah ("all the congregation," H5712), indicating collective execution rather than an individual agent. The clause kaGer ka'ezrach draws a grammatical parallel between "the sojourner" and "the native-born," both marked with the same preposition-plus-article pattern, placing them under identical legal standing for this offense. The final clause, benakvo-shem yumat ("in his slandering the name, he will be put to death"), restates the crime using an infinitive construct with a pronominal suffix, closing the verse with a second, shorter repetition of the death sentence — a summarizing echo of the opening participle.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew verb noKev (H5344B) is rendered by the LXX as ὀνομάζων ("naming") and by the Vulgate as blasphemaverit ("shall have blasphemed"). The LXX's "naming" is a more neutral rendering than the Hebrew participle, which carries a sense of piercing or reviling, while the Vulgate's "blasphemed" narrows the act to verbal offense against the divine name. The LXX also specifies "the whole assembly of Israel" (πᾶσα συναγωγὴ Ἰσραήλ), where the Hebrew kol-ha'edah ("all the congregation") does not include "Israel" explicitly.