Leviticus 18:4-5

18:4 You must observe my regulations 1  and you must be sure to walk in my statutes. 2  I am the Lord your God. 18:5 So you must keep 3  my statutes and my regulations; anyone who does so will live by keeping them. 4  I am the Lord.

Leviticus 18:26

18:26 You yourselves must obey 5  my statutes and my regulations and must not do any of these abominations, both the native citizen and the resident foreigner in your midst, 6 

Leviticus 25:18

25:18 You must obey my statutes and my regulations; you must be sure to keep them 7  so that you may live securely in the land. 8 

Leviticus 25:55

25:55 because the Israelites are my own servants; 9  they are my servants whom I brought out from the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God.

1 tn Heb “My regulations you shall do”; KJV, NASB “my judgments”; NRSV “My ordinances”; NIV, TEV “my laws.”

sn The Hebrew term translated “regulation” (מִשְׁפָּט, mishpat) refers to the set of regulations about to be set forth in the following chapters (cf. Lev 19:37; 20:22; 25:18; 26:46). Note especially the thematic and formulaic relationships between the introduction here in Lev 18:1-5 and the paraenesis in Lev 20:22-26, both of which refer explicitly to the corrupt nations and the need to separate from them by keeping the Lord’s regulations.

2 tn Heb “and my statutes you shall keep [or “watch; guard”] to walk in them.”

3 tn Heb “And you shall keep.”

4 tn Heb “which the man shall do them and shall live in them.” The term for “a man, human being; mankind” (אָדָם, ’adam; see the note on Lev 1:2) in this case refers to any person among “mankind,” male or female. The expression וָחַי (vakhay, “and shall live”) looks like the adjective “living” so it is written וְחָיָה (vÿkhayah) in Smr, but the MT form is simply the same verb written as a double ayin verb (see HALOT 309 s.v. חיה qal and GKC 218 §76.i; cf. Lev 25:35).

5 tn Heb “And you shall keep, you.” The latter emphatic personal pronoun “you” is left out of a few medieval Hebrew mss, Smr, the LXX, Syriac, and Vulgate.

6 tn Heb “the native and the sojourner”; NIV “The native-born and the aliens”; NAB “whether natives or resident aliens.”

7 tn Heb “And you shall keep and do them.” This appears to be a kind of verbal hendiadys, where the first verb is a modifier of the action of the second verb (see GKC 386 §120.d, although שָׁמַר [shamar, “to keep”] is not cited there; cf. Lev 20:8, etc.).

8 tn Heb “and you shall dwell on the land to security.”

9 tn Heb “because to me the sons of Israel are servants.”