Leviticus 27:30

Summary

Leviticus 27:30 states that every tithe of the land — whether from the seed of the land or from the fruit of the trees — belongs to Yehovah (H3068G), and is designated as qodesh ("a holy thing", H6944G) to him.

Key words

ma'sar ("tithe of", H4643) — construct form meaning "the tithe of," grammatically bound to ha'aretz ("the land"), establishing that the tithe in view is specifically agricultural produce of the land.

zera' ("seed of", H2233G) — construct noun linking to ha'aretz a second time, forming a pair with peri below; this construct chain specifies the two categories of tithe-able produce.

peri ("fruit of", H6529) — construct noun paired with ha'etz ("the tree[s]", H6086H), completing the merism "seed...fruit" that spans field crops and orchard produce.

hu' ("it", H1931) — third-person personal pronoun functioning as a copula between the subject (the tithe) and the prepositional phrase la-Yehovah ("to/for Yehovah"), asserting the tithe's belonging.

qodesh ("a holy thing", H6944G) — a noun in apposition, restating the tithe's status after the pronoun hu' has already declared its belonging, reinforcing the designation with a second predicate.

What the text says

The verse opens with ve-khol-ma'sar ha'aretz ("and all the tithe of the land"), using the construct chain ma'sar...ha'aretz to define the tithe as one drawn from the land's produce. This is then specified through two parallel prepositional phrases introduced by mi ("from", H9006): mi-zera' ha'aretz ("from the seed of the land") and mi-peri ha'etz ("from the fruit of the tree[s]"). Both phrases share the same construct-plus-preposition structure, creating a balanced pairing that covers field crops (zera') and tree produce (peri) as the two components of "the land's" yield.

The sentence contains two predications about this tithe, each introduced by the preposition la ("to/for", H9005) governing Yehovah. First, the pronoun hu' ("it") links the subject to la-Yehovah, stating that the tithe "is Yehovah's" — a construction using a pronoun as copula rather than a verb "to be," which is characteristic of Hebrew nominal clauses. Second, the noun qodesh ("a holy thing") stands in apposition, followed again by la-Yehovah, forming a near-repetition: the tithe belongs to Yehovah, and additionally it is qodesh to Yehovah. This doubling — belonging stated once via pronoun, then reinforced via a status-noun — is a feature of the Hebrew syntax not preserved as a doubled structure in translations that render both clauses as a single flowing sentence.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders zera' ("seed") and peri ha'etz ("fruit of the tree") using genitive nouns (σπέρματος, καρποῦ τοῦ ξυλίνου) without a repeated preposition matching the Hebrew's twofold mi, and merges the two occurrences of la-Yehovah into a single κυρίῳ construction shared across both clauses, whereas the Hebrew repeats la-Yehovah twice (once with hu', once with qodesh). The Vulgate similarly consolidates the structure into "Domini sunt, et illi sanctificantur," using a passive verb ("sanctificantur," "are sanctified") for the second clause instead of the Hebrew's simple nominal predication with qodesh.