Leviticus 10:13 - On the offsprings’ gender

וַאֲכַלְתֶּ֤ם אֹתָהּ֙ בְּמָק֣וֹם קָד֔וֹשׁ כִּ֣י חׇקְךָ֤ וְחׇק־בָּנֶ֙יךָ֙ הִ֔וא מֵאִשֵּׁ֖י יְהֹוָ֑ה כִּי־כֵ֖ן צֻוֵּֽיתִי׃

You shall eat it in the sacred precinct, since it is your due, and that of your sons, from GOD’s offerings by fire; for so I have been commanded.

(The above rendering comes from the RJPS translation, an adaptation of the NJPS translation.)


The noun בָּנִים (plural of בֵּן, here inflected with a pronominal suffix as בָּנֶיךָ) is employed to label a category of persons, whose gender is thus not constrained by the referring expression. On how social gender is ascribed (or not) in Biblical Hebrew references, see Stein 2008; Stein 2013.

Yet the topic surely excludes women from view: the “you” (plural) is eating a “most holy” offering—a type that is off limits to non-priests (6:11; Num. 18:8–10), such as the daughters of a priest. Thus the immediate context specifies that בָּנֶיךָ here refers to Aaron’s sons only, and not also to his female offspring.


As for translation into English, the NJPS rendering “your children” nowadays tends to be taken as a positively inclusive (and not merely neutral) term. Hence although arguably the context suffices to notify the reader that daughters are not in view, the wording is more confusing than necessary. With regard to close kinship roles, gender specificity remains the norm in English parlance (despite the language’s natural preference for gender-neutral wording in general). The revised rendering is more clearly gender-specific.