Leviticus 7:28

Summary

This verse is a short narrative formula that introduces a new divine speech. It states that Yehovah spoke to Moses, opening the section that follows with instructions.

Key words

• va ("and", H9001) — narrative vav prefixed to the verb, marking sequential action in the story ("and then...").
• y.da.Ber ("he spoke", H1696G) — piel verbal stem, third person masculine singular, giving an intensive nuance to the act of speaking; the piel form of this root is the standard form used to introduce Yehovah's speech.
• Yehovah ("Yehovah", H3068G) — the divine proper name, functioning as the subject of the verb.
• mo.Sheh ("Moses", H4872) — proper name, object of the preposition 'el ("to", H0413), marking the recipient of the speech.
• Mor ("saying", H0559) — qal infinitive construct, prefixed with le. ("to", H9005), forming the standard formula "saying" that introduces the content of direct speech to follow.

What the text says

The verse follows a fixed syntactic pattern common in the legal sections of Leviticus: narrative vav + verb (y.da.Ber) + subject (Yehovah) + prepositional phrase ('el-mosheh) + infinitive of speech (le'mor). The verb y.da.Ber is in the piel stem, third person masculine singular, agreeing with the subject Yehovah that follows it — a verb-subject order typical of Biblical Hebrew narrative syntax. The prepositional phrase 'el-mosheh identifies Moses as the addressee, using the preposition 'el ("to", H0413) to indicate direction of the speech act.

The final element, le'mor, is built from the preposition le. ("to", H9005) attached to the qal infinitive of 'amar ("to say", H0559). This construction does not add new semantic content beyond "saying" — it functions grammatically as a formal marker that signals direct speech is about to begin. The verse itself contains no content of the speech; it is purely an introductory formula, structurally identical to similar formulas found throughout Leviticus.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew text presents a single infinitive le'mor ("saying") after the main clause. The Vulgate renders this with a participle, dicens ("saying"), which mirrors the Hebrew's function but uses a different grammatical form (participle instead of infinitive). The BSB gives a compact rendering, "Then the LORD said to Moses," without a separate word corresponding to le'mor, absorbing its function into the main verb "said." The SBLIBRE (Spanish) doubles the verb of speech ("le habló... y le dijo," "he spoke to him and said to him"), representing both y.da.Ber and le'mor as distinct verbs, where the Hebrew uses one finite verb and one infinitive construct.