Numbers 8:17

Summary

The verse states that every firstborn among the Israelites — human and animal — belongs to the speaker (YHWH). It grounds this claim in a past event: on the day the firstborn of Egypt were struck down, these firstborn of Israel were set apart for the speaker's own possession.

Key words

• li (from H9005 + H9030) "to me" — preposition + 1st person suffix, placed emphatically before the noun it modifies, marking possession ("mine is...") rather than simple attribution.
• bekhor ("firstborn", H1060) — appears twice (positions 5 and 19), each time in construct with khol ("every", H3605), forming "every firstborn," first of Israel, then of Egypt, creating a parallel structure.
• hakkoti ("my striking", H5221) — hiphil infinitive with 1st person suffix, functioning as a temporal noun phrase after beyom ("on the day of," H3117G), literally "on the day of my striking."
• hiqdashti ("I set apart / I sanctified", H6942G) — hiphil perfect, 1st person, marking a completed act performed by the speaker upon the firstborn.
• oto...li — the direct object marker (H0853) with 3rd plural suffix followed by li ("to/for me," H9005+H9030) at the very end, echoing the opening li and framing the whole verse with the same possessive phrase.

What the text says

The sentence opens with ki li ("for to-me"), placing the possessive phrase before the subject khol bekhor ("every firstborn"). This word order foregrounds ownership rather than the noun itself — the Hebrew structure emphasizes "mine" before naming what is claimed. The scope of "firstborn" is specified through two prepositional phrases, ba-adam ("among humankind," H0120G) and u-va-behemah ("and among livestock," H0929), joined by the conjunction u ("and," H9002), covering both human and animal firstborn among bene Yisrael ("the sons of Israel," H1121G+H3478).

The second half of the verse shifts to a temporal clause built on the construct phrase beyom hakkoti ("on the day of my striking"), using the hiphil infinitive with a possessive suffix rather than a finite verb — a grammatical construction that ties the action tightly to the speaker as agent. This clause specifies the object of that past striking as khol bekhor be'eretz Mitzrayim ("every firstborn in the land of Egypt," H0776G+H4714G), mirroring the earlier phrase "every firstborn" but now applied to Egypt rather than Israel. The main verb of the sentence, hiqdashti ("I set apart," H6942G), a hiphil perfect, reports the completed action taken as a consequence, with otam (direct object marker + 3rd plural suffix) marking "them" as the firstborn of Israel, and the final li ("for myself") closing the verse with the same possessive term that opened it.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders hiqdashti ("I set apart," H6942G) with ἡγίασα ("I sanctified/consecrated"), a term with distinct religious connotations in Greek usage. The Vulgate's sanctificavi similarly carries a consecration sense. The Hebrew hiqdashti shares this root sense of "setting apart," but the versions' vocabulary choices (ἡγίασα, sanctificavi) foreground a nuance of ritual consecration not explicit in the base gloss "set apart" given for the Hebrew form.