Deuteronomy 12:27

Summary

The verse gives instructions for two categories of sacrifice: for the olah ("burnt offering"), both flesh and blood are placed on the altar of Yehovah; for the zevach ("sacrifice"), only the blood is poured on the altar while the flesh is eaten. The verse repeats the phrase "altar of Yehovah your God" twice, once for each category.

Key words

• 'olotekha ("your burnt offerings", H5930A) — feminine plural construct with 2ms suffix; names the first category, where flesh and blood together go to the altar.
• dam ("blood", H1818) — appears twice, once absolute (with article, line 9) and once construct (dam-zevacheikha, "blood of your sacrifices", line 16), marking the shift from the olah clause to the zevach clause.
• zevacheikha ("your sacrifices", H2077) — masculine plural construct with 2ms suffix; the second sacrificial category, distinct from olah.
• yishafekh ("it will be poured out", H8210G) — niphal imperfect, passive form; the blood is the grammatical subject undergoing the action, contrasting with the active verbs ta'aseh ("you will make") and tokhel ("you will eat").
• tokhel ("you will eat", H0398) — qal imperfect, active, 2ms; assigns the flesh of the zevach to human consumption, opposite of the olah treatment.

What the text says

The sentence is built in two parallel halves, each ending with the same phrase mizbach Yehovah 'Eloheikha ("altar of Yehovah your God", using H4196 construct + H3068G + H0430G construct + suffix). In the first half, the verb 'asita ("you will make", H6213I, qal sequential perfect) governs 'olotekha, and the following words ha-basar ve-ha-dam ("the flesh and the blood") are placed in apposition, specifying that both components of the burnt offering go together onto the altar. No verb of eating appears in this half — the entire animal is treated as belonging to the altar.

The second half introduces a new construct chain, dam-zevacheikha ("blood of your sacrifices"), and switches to a niphal verb, yishafekh, meaning the blood undergoes the pouring rather than the offerer performing a direct act on it — grammatically distancing the human agent from that action. The final clause returns to the active voice with tokhel ("you will eat"), now applied to ha-basar ("the flesh") alone, without repeating "blood." The construct chains ('olotekha, dam-zevacheikha, mizbach Yehovah 'Eloheikha) organize the verse around two clearly separated legal categories, distinguished by which parts of the animal reach the altar and which are eaten.

Differences between versions

The LXX text given ("καὶ ποιήσεις τὰ ὁλοκαυτώματά σου· τὰ δὲ κρέα φάγῃ") renders only a compressed form: "you will make your burnt offerings; but you shall eat the flesh." It does not reproduce the Hebrew's repeated phrase "altar of Yehovah your God," the explicit mention of blood placed on the altar for the olah, nor the zevach clause with the niphal yishafekh ("it will be poured out"). The Vulgate, by contrast, follows the Hebrew's two-part structure closely, naming carnem et sanguinem ("flesh and blood") for the oblationes, and separately instructing that sanguinem hostiarum fundes ("you will pour the blood of the sacrifices") while carnibus... vesceris ("you will eat of the flesh").