Leviticus 23

## Summary Leviticus 23 records Yahweh's instructions to Moses concerning the *mo'adim* ("appointed feasts", H4150H) of Israel — the weekly Sabbath, Passover, Unleavened Bread, Firstfruits, Weeks, Trumpets, the Day of Atonement, and Booths. Each festival is defined by its date, its required *miqra qodesh* ("convocation of holiness", H4744/H6944G), and the offerings or abstentions from work associated with it. The chapter closes with Moses transmitting these instructions to the Israelites. ## Key words - *mo'adei* ("appointed feasts of", H4150H) — masculine plural construct; recurs as the organizing term for the entire chapter, framing each festival as a fixed time set by Yahweh rather than a spontaneous celebration. - *miqra qodesh* ("convocation of holiness", H4744 + H6944G) — a construct phrase repeated for several feast days, marking days requiring public assembly, distinct from ordinary sabbath rest. - *melekhet 'avodah* ("work of servitude", H4399 + H5656I) — construct phrase used in the prohibition formula; a narrower category than *kol melakhah* ("any work", H4399) used for the Day of Atonement and weekly Sabbath, suggesting a distinction in the grammar between total work-cessation and cessation from laborious/servile work. - *ta'anu* / *'innitem* ("you will afflict/humble", H6031B, piel) — the piel stem used for "afflicting the soul" (*nefesh*, H5315I) on the Day of Atonement, an intensive verb form applied reflexively to one's own person. - *chuqat 'olam* ("a statute of perpetuity", H2708 + H5769G) — a recurring closing formula fixing each festival law "for your generations" (*doroteikhem*, H1755) and "in all your dwelling places" (*moshvoteikhem*, H4186). ## What the text says The chapter is structured as a series of divine speech acts introduced by the formula *va-yedaber Yahweh el-Mosheh lemor* ("and Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying", H1696G/H3068G/H4872/H0559), occurring at verses 1, 9, 23, 26, and 33, each time launching a new block of festival legislation. Moses is then commanded with the imperative *dabber* ("speak", H1696G piel) to relay content to *bnei Yisra'el* ("the people of Israel", H1121G/H3478) using the sequential perfect *ve-amarta* ("and you will say", H0559). Grammatically, the text alternates between imperfect verb forms describing ongoing obligations (e.g., *ta'asu*, "you will do", H6213A) and sequential perfects marking successive required actions (*hikravtem*, "you will present", H7126H). The niphal and pual stems appear notably in verse 3 (*te'aseh*, "it will be done", H6213A niphal) and verse 29 (*te'unneh*, "it will be humbled", H6031B pual), both passive constructions that shift focus from the human agent to the state of the day or the person. The date formulas throughout (e.g., *be-arba'ah 'asar la-chodesh*, "on the fourteenth of the month", H0702/H6240) use cardinal numbers in construct chains typical of Hebrew calendrical notation, fixing each festival to a specific day of a specific month rather than a general season. ## Differences between versions In verse 11, the Hebrew *mimochorat ha-Shabbat* ("from the next day of the sabbath", H4283/H7676) is rendered in the LXX as τῇ ἐπαύριον τῆς πρώτης ("the day after the first [day]"), replacing "sabbath" with "the first," a divergence in referent for the count's starting point. In verse 22, the LXX adds ἐγὼ κύριος ὁ θεὸς ὑμῶν at the same position as the Hebrew *'ani Yahweh 'eloheikhem*, matching content, but the Vulgate's rendering of *pe'at sadkha* ("the edge of your field", H6285) as "usque ad solum" ("all the way to the ground") diverges structurally from the Hebrew's spatial term "edge/corner."