Leviticus 7:22

Summary

This verse is a short narrative formula introducing divine speech: Yehovah speaks to Moses. It contains no legal content itself but functions as an introductory marker for the instructions that follow in the chapter.

Key words

• va-yedaber ("and he spoke", H1696G) — piel verb with narrative vav, marking sequential action ("and then he spoke"); the piel stem gives an intensive nuance to the act of speaking, commonly used for formal or authoritative pronouncements.
• Yehovah ("Yehovah", H3068G) — the divine name, functioning as the grammatical subject of the verb yedaber.
• el ("to", H0413) — preposition marking the recipient of the speech, directing the action toward Mosheh.
• Mosheh ("Moses", H4872) — proper name, the addressee of the divine speech.
• lemor ("saying", H0559) — qal infinitive construct, functioning here as a formulaic marker that introduces direct discourse (equivalent to opening quotation marks for what follows).

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence follows a fixed syntactic pattern common throughout Leviticus and other legal-narrative sections of the Pentateuch: verb (va-yedaber) + subject (Yehovah) + prepositional phrase indicating the recipient (el-Mosheh) + infinitive marking the onset of speech (lemor). This four-part structure has no independent semantic content beyond introducing what follows; its function is purely structural, signaling a transition to new legal material.

The piel stem of dabar (H1696G) is regularly used for this formula rather than the qal, giving weight to the act of speaking as authoritative or official rather than casual. The infinitive lemor (H0559) does not carry tense on its own — it works idiomatically as an introduction to quoted speech, similar to a colon before a quotation in English.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew (va-yedaber Yehovah el-Mosheh lemor) and the Vulgate ("Locutusque est Dominus ad Moysen, dicens") align closely in structure, each preserving the sequence: verb of speaking, subject, recipient, and a participial/infinitival marker introducing direct discourse. The Spanish and English translations reflect this same formula.

The LXX text supplied here ("καὶ τὸν βραχίονα τὸν δεξιὸν δώσετε ἀφαίρεμα τῷ ἱερεῖ...") does not correspond to this formulaic introduction; it speaks instead of giving the right shoulder as a contribution to the priest, content that belongs to a different part of the chapter. Based on the data given, the LXX line provided does not align with the Hebrew, Vulgate, or other translations of Leviticus 7:22.