Numbers 18:13

Summary

The verse states that the firstfruits of everything produced in the land, when brought to Yehovah, belong to the addressee (Aaron, per the wider context of Numbers 18). It further specifies that anyone in his household who is ritually clean may eat from these offerings.

Key words

• bikurei ("first-fruits of", H1061) — masculine plural construct noun, opening the sentence as the grammatical subject; the construct form links it to "all that is in their land."
• yavi'u ("they will bring", H0935P) — hiphil (causative) imperfect, third person masculine plural; the causative stem marks the act of "bringing/causing to come" the offering to Yehovah, distinguishing the human action from the produce itself.
• yihyeh ("it will belong", H1961) — qal imperfect, third person masculine singular; expresses future/ongoing state of belonging, assigning the firstfruits to "you" (lekha).
• tahor ("clean [person]", H2889) — masculine singular adjective, functioning here as a substantive ("the clean one"); it sets the condition for who may consume the offering.
• yo'khalennu ("he will eat it", H0398) — qal imperfect with third person masculine singular pronominal suffix ("it"); the suffix ties the verb directly back to the produce described earlier in the verse.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built in two main clauses joined by the semantic pivot yihyeh ("it will belong"). The first clause identifies the subject: bikurei kol asher be'artzam ("the firstfruits of all that is in their land"), followed by a relative clause asher yavi'u laYHWH ("which they will bring to Yehovah"), specifying that these firstfruits are the ones actually delivered to Yehovah. The verb yavi'u is hiphil, marking the causative sense of bringing the produce forward as an offering, not simply describing produce that grows on its own. The clause closes with lekha yihyeh ("to you it will belong"), placing the recipient (second person masculine singular, "you") before the verb for emphasis, a common Hebrew construction (fronting the prepositional phrase) that highlights who receives the goods.

The second sentence shifts to a distinct condition: kol tahor beveitkha yo'khalennu ("every clean [person] in your household, he will eat it"). Here tahor functions as a substantive describing a category of person (one who is ritually clean), and the construct phrase beveitkha ("in your household") narrows the group of eligible eaters. The final verb yo'khalennu carries a pronominal suffix ("it"), grammatically linking back to the previously mentioned firstfruits as the direct object being consumed.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders yavi'u ("they will bring") with ἐνέγκωσιν ("they might bring"), a subjunctive mood, giving a slightly more contingent nuance than the Hebrew imperfect, which can carry future or habitual force. The Vulgate paraphrases the opening construct chain (bikurei kol asher be'artzam) as "universa frugum initia, quas gignit humus" ("all the beginnings of fruits which the ground produces"), introducing the verb gignit ("produces") not explicitly present in the Hebrew text, which instead uses the relative particle asher ("that/which") twice without a stated verb of production.