Deuteronomy 12:16

Summary

The verse gives a restriction on the consumption of blood: it must not be eaten, but instead poured out on the ground like water. It is framed as an exception (rak, "only") within a broader permission regarding meat consumption.

Key words

• rak ("only", H7535) — restrictive adverb marking this clause as an exception to what precedes; it isolates blood as the single prohibited item.
• ha-Dam ("the blood", H1818 + H9009) — definite noun, the direct object of the prohibition; the article marks it as a specific, known category (blood in general, not "a blood").
• to.Khe.lu ("you must eat", H0398) — qal imperfect, 2nd person masculine plural, negated by lo' ("not", H3808); the imperfect conveys an ongoing or repeated prohibition rather than a single act.
• tish.pe.Khe.nu ("you will pour it out", H8210G + H9033) — qal imperfect 2nd masculine singular with pronominal suffix "it"; note the shift from plural (to.Khe.lu) to singular here, addressing the individual actor for the disposal act.
• ka.Ma.yim ("like the water", H9004 + H4325G) — preposition + definite plural noun, forming a comparison that specifies how the blood is to be treated: as one would treat water, i.e., poured freely on the ground.

What the text says

The sentence divides into two clauses joined by contrast. The first clause, rak ha-Dam lo' to.Khe.lu ("only the blood you must not eat"), uses the restrictive particle rak to signal that this is a carve-out from a wider practice, and the negated imperfect verb frames the prohibition as continuous or habitual rather than a one-time event. The plural verb form indicates the command is addressed to a group.

The second clause, 'al-ha-'Aretz tish.pe.Khe.nu ka.Ma.yim ("on the ground you will pour it out like water"), shifts to a singular verb form with a pronominal suffix attached directly to the verb, referring back to "the blood" as "it." This grammatical shift from plural address to singular address is a feature of the Hebrew text itself, though its significance for interpretation is not addressed by the data here. The comparison ka.Ma.yim ("like water") does not describe blood's nature but rather the manner of disposal — poured out freely, without ceremony, the way water would be discarded on the ground.

Differences between versions

The Vulgate (VULCLEM) renders the second clause with a relative construction, "quem super terram quasi aquam effundes" ("which you shall pour out upon the ground like water"), using a relative pronoun (quem) to link the clause to "blood," where the Hebrew instead uses a pronominal suffix (-nu, "it") attached to the verb itself. The LXX (πλὴν τὸ αἷμα οὐ φάγεσθε, ἐπὶ τὴν γῆν ἐκχεεῖτε αὐτὸ ὡς ὕδωρ) follows the Hebrew's two-clause structure closely, including a separate pronoun αὐτὸ ("it") for the suffix, and preserves the plural verb φάγεσθε ("you will eat") matching to.Khe.lu, though its verb ἐκχεεῖτε ("you will pour out") appears as plural rather than reflecting the singular shift seen in the Hebrew tish.pe.Khe.nu.