Leviticus 24:8

Summary

The verse specifies that the arrangement of the bread (referred to by the pronominal suffix "it") is to be renewed on every Sabbath day, placed continually before Yehovah, and that this comes from the Israelites as a berit olam ("covenant of perpetuity", H5769G+H1285). The Hebrew text repeats the phrase "on the day of the sabbath" twice.

Key words

• Yom ("day of", H3117G) — masculine singular construct, repeated twice in sequence (beyom hashabbat beyom hashabbat), creating a doubled temporal phrase not found as a repetition in the other versions.
• Ya'arkhennu ("he will arrange it", H6186A) — qal imperfect third person masculine with a third person masculine singular pronominal suffix (-nu, H9033), meaning the subject acts upon an object marked only by the suffix, without the object being named in this verse.
• Lifnei ("before", H6440G) — masculine plural construct of "face," used prepositionally to indicate spatial/ritual position relative to Yehovah.
• Me'et ("from", H0854 with H9006) — a compound preposition combining "from" and "with," indicating source or origin, here applied to the bene Israel ("sons/people of Israel", H1121G+H3478).
• Berit olam ("covenant of perpetuity", H1285+H5769G) — feminine singular construct noun followed by a noun indicating unending duration, forming a fixed expression.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence opens with a doubled temporal construct phrase, beyom hashabbat beyom hashabbat ("on the day of the sabbath, on the day of the sabbath"), before the main verb appears. This repetition functions to mark recurrence — each sabbath day, without the verse needing a separate word for "each" or "every." The verb ya'arkhennu carries both the subject (implied "he," referring to the officiant, not stated in this verse) and the object via the suffix -nu ("it"), referring back to something established earlier in the passage rather than named here.

The phrase lifnei Yehovah tamid ("before Yehovah continually") specifies both the location of the action (in Yehovah's presence) and its uninterrupted nature (tamid, H8548). The following prepositional phrase me'et bene Israel uses the compound preposition me'et ("from"), indicating that the arrangement originates from or is supplied by the Israelites, rather than simply happening in their presence. The final phrase berit olam stands in apposition, without a copula or connecting verb, describing the entire arrangement as a "covenant of perpetuity."

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the doubled Hebrew phrase as a single occurrence, τῇ ἡμέρᾳ τῶν σαββάτων ("on the day of the sabbaths"), without repetition. The Vulgate similarly gives "Per singula sabbata" ("through each sabbath"), a distributive construction rather than a doubled phrase.

For me'et bene Israel, the LXX has ἐνώπιον τῶν υἱῶν Ἰσραήλ ("before the sons of Israel"), a positional sense, where the Hebrew me'et indicates source ("from"). The Vulgate's "suscepti a filiis Israël" ("received from the sons of Israel") aligns with the Hebrew "from" sense rather than the LXX's "before."