Numbers 35:34

Summary

The verse forbids defiling the land in which the Israelites dwell, giving as the reason that Yehovah himself dwells in the midst of that land and among the people of Israel. The prohibition and its justification are linked by a causal clause.

Key words

• te.ta.Me' ("you will make unclean", H2930A) — piel imperfect, second person masculine (addressed collectively), an intensive stem indicating an active, ongoing or potential action of making the land ritually unclean, not merely becoming unclean oneself.
• 'A.retz ("land", H0776G) — feminine singular noun with the definite article (ha., H9009), marking it as the specific territory already under discussion, further defined by two relative clauses.
• yo.she.Vim ("dwelling", H3427) — qal participle, masculine plural, describing the Israelites' ongoing state of habitation "in it" (Ba-h, H9003+H9034).
• sho.Khen ("dwelling", H7931) — qal participle, repeated three times in the verse (once for the addressee-directed clause, twice for Yehovah), each time masculine singular, presenting dwelling as a continuous state rather than a single event.
• ki ("for", H3588A) — subordinating particle introducing the causal clause that grounds the prohibition in Yehovah's own presence.

What the text says

The verse opens with a negated piel imperfect, ve-lo tetamme ("and you will not make unclean"), governing the direct object et-ha'aretz ("the land"), marked by the object marker 'et (H0853). This land is then qualified by two successive relative clauses introduced by 'asher (H0834A): the first states that "you" (plural, 'attem, H0859D) dwell in it (yoshevim bah), the second that "I" ('ani, H0589) dwell in its midst (shoken betokhah), using the construct noun tokh ("midst of", H8432) with a pronominal suffix referring back to the land.

The final clause, introduced by ki ("for", H3588A), restates the claim of divine presence with greater specificity: 'ani YHWH shoken betokh benei Yisra'el — "I, Yehovah, dwell in the midst of the sons of Israel" — now using the construct chain tokh benei Yisra'el ("midst of the sons of Israel", H8432 + H1121G) rather than a suffixed pronoun tied to the land. The repetition of the participle shoken across the verse (referring to Yehovah twice, and structurally paralleling yoshevim for the people) creates a rhetorical mirroring between the people's dwelling in the land and Yehovah's dwelling among the people, with the prohibition against defilement placed between these two statements.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the Hebrew participle shoken ("dwelling") with the future verb κατασκηνώσω ("I will dwell") in its first occurrence, shifting from a present participial state to a future tense, while retaining a present participle (κατασκηνῶν) in the final clause. The Vulgate restructures the verse into a different syntactic form, rendering the opening not as a direct address about the land's defilement but as a resulting purification ("emundabitur vestra possessio," "your possession will be cleansed"), tying it to the ablative absolute "me commorante vobiscum" ("me dwelling with you"), a construction distinct from the Hebrew's parallel relative clauses.