Leviticus 7:38

Summary

This verse closes a section of legal material by anchoring it in time and place: it states that Yehovah commanded Moses on Mount Sinai, on the day he commanded the Israelites to present their offerings to Yehovah in the wilderness of Sinai.

Key words

• tzi.Vah ("he commanded", H6680) — piel perfect, third person masculine singular; the piel stem gives the verb an intensive/directive force ("to charge, command formally"), and the perfect aspect marks it as a completed act.
• tza.vo.T + o ("commanded" + "his", H6680 + H9043) — the same root appears again, now as a piel infinitive construct with a pronominal suffix ("in his commanding"), forming the phrase be-yom tzavoto ("on the day of his commanding"), a common Hebrew construction for temporal clauses.
• hak.Riv ("present", H7126H) — hiphil infinitive construct; the hiphil (causative) stem conveys the sense of "causing to draw near / bringing forward," i.e., presenting an offering rather than simply giving it.
• ka.re.be.nei.hem ("their presents", H7133A + H9028) — masculine plural construct noun with a third-person plural suffix, referring back to the Israelites (bene Yisra'el) as the ones bringing the offerings.
• be.har / be.mid.bar ("on the mountain of" / "in the wilderness of", H2022G / H4057G) — both are construct nouns with the preposition be-, framing the verse geographically with matching phrases "Mount Sinai" and "Wilderness of Sinai."

What the text says

The verse is built around two occurrences of the root tzavah ("to command," H6680): first as a finite verb (tzivvah, "he commanded") describing Yehovah's command to Moses, and second as an infinitive construct with suffix (tzavoto, "his commanding") describing the same act from a temporal angle — "on the day of his commanding." This repetition creates a chiastic frame: command to Moses (mountain) / command to Israel (wilderness), tying the giving of the law to Moses with its transmission to the people.

The two prepositional phrases be-har Sinai ("on the mountain of Sinai") and be-midbar Sinai ("in the wilderness of Sinai") use the same construct pattern with the place name Sinai (H5514G), but differ in the geographical noun — har ("mountain," H2022G) versus midbar ("wilderness," H4057G). This distinguishes the location where Moses received the command (the mountain) from the location where the Israelites carried it out (the wider wilderness), even though both are called "Sinai."

Differences between versions

The Vulgate renders tzivvah with constituit ("he established/appointed") rather than a more direct "commanded," and uses a future-tense-like mandabit ("he will command") for the second occurrence of the root, where the Hebrew infinitive tzavoto is temporal ("on the day of his commanding," referring to a past act relative to the main clause). The Hebrew's double use of the same root (tzavah) to link both clauses is not preserved as clearly in the Vulgate's shift from constituit to mandabit, nor is it fully mirrored in the English versions (BSB: "gave"/"commanded"; RV1909: "intimó"/"mandó"), which use different verbs for the two occurrences where the Hebrew repeats one root.