Leviticus 26:10

Summary

The verse describes a sequence of consumption and storage: those addressed will eat yashan ("old harvest", H3465H) that has grown fully aged, and will have to clear out that old store because of the arrival of new harvest. The grammar presents this as a continuous or repeated future action rather than a single event.

Key words

• va'akhalTem ("you will eat", H0398) — sequential perfect with the narrative vav (H9001); this verb form continues a chain of consequences rather than standing as an isolated statement.
• yashan ("old harvest", H3465H) — masculine singular adjective, repeated twice in the verse (positions 3 and 6), each time modifying a different clause.
• noshan ("growing old", H3462) — niphal participle from the same root as yashan; paired with the adjective it intensifies the sense of age, describing grain that has "grown old" rather than simply "old" grain.
• mippenei ("from before", H9006 + H6440G) — preposition + construct plural noun panim ("face/presence"); the idiom "from the face of" functions here to mean "because of" or "on account of," introducing the cause for the action that follows.
• totzi'u ("you will bring out", H3318H) — hiphil (causative) imperfect; the causative stem marks an action of causing something to go out, and the imperfect aspect leaves the timing open-ended (ongoing or repeated).

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence links two actions through the sequential perfect va'akhalTem: eating aged grain and then, in a second clause marked by the plain conjunction ve (H9002), bringing old stock out from storage. The doubling of yashan ("old harvest") — once modified by the participle noshan ("growing old") and once used alone — creates an intensified description of long-stored grain, without a single word in Hebrew meaning "very old"; the intensification comes from stacking a noun-like adjective with a related verbal form of the same root.

The phrase mippenei chadash ("from before [the] new [harvest]", H6440G + H2319H) uses the construct noun panim idiomatically to indicate causation: the old grain is removed "from the face of" the new, i.e., because new harvest is arriving. The final verb totzi'u, in the hiphil stem, marks the causative sense "cause to go out," distinct from a simple "leave" or "depart" — the subject is depicted as actively yet ordinarily clearing the store, not passively watching it deplete.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the doubled Hebrew adjective+participle as παλαιὰ παλαιῶν ("old of olds"), a Greek genitive-plural intensifying construction paralleling the Hebrew's yashan noshan. The Vulgate goes further with vetustissima veterum ("oldest of the old"), using a superlative form not present in the Hebrew grammar itself. For totzi'u ("you will bring out"), the Vulgate uses projicietis ("you will throw away/cast out"), a stronger sense of discarding than the Hebrew causative "bring out." The BSB and SBLIBRE add interpretive phrasing ("when you need to," "tendrán que," "will have to") expressing obligation or timing not explicit in the Hebrew imperfect totzi'u.