Exodus 20:24

מִזְבַּח אֲדָמָה תַּעֲשֶׂה־לִּי וְזָבַחְתָּ עָלָיו אֶת־עֹלֹתֶיךָ וְאֶת־שְׁלָמֶיךָ אֶת־צֹֽאנְךָ וְאֶת־בְּקָרֶךָ בְּכָל־הַמָּקוֹם אֲשֶׁר אַזְכִּיר אֶת־שְׁמִי אָבוֹא אֵלֶיךָ וּבֵרַכְתִּֽיךָ׃

✦ Hebrew interlinear

Tap a word to see its entry

✦ The same verse in five languages

Hebrew

מִזְבַּ֣ח אֲדָמָה֮ תַּעֲשֶׂה־לִּי֒ וְזָבַחְתָּ֣ עָלָ֗יו אֶת־עֹלֹתֶ֙יךָ֙ וְאֶת־שְׁלָמֶ֔יךָ אֶת־צֹֽאנְךָ֖ וְאֶת־בְּקָרֶ֑ךָ בְּכָל־הַמָּקוֹם֙ אֲשֶׁ֣ר אַזְכִּ֣יר אֶת־שְׁמִ֔י אָב֥וֹא אֵלֶ֖יךָ וּבֵרַכְתִּֽיךָ׃

Greek (Septuagint)

Θυσιαστήριον ἐκ γῆς ποιήσετέ μοι, καὶ θύσετε ἐπ’ αὐτοῦ τὰ ὁλοκαυτώματα ὑμῶν καὶ τὰ σωτήρια ὑμῶν καὶ τὰ πρόβατα καὶ τοὺς μόσχους ὑμῶν ἐν παντὶ τόπω οὗ ἐὰν ἐπονομάσω τὸ ὄνομά μου ἐκεῖ· καὶ ἥξω πρὸς σὲ καὶ εὐλογήσω σε.

Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0

Latin (Vulgate)

Altare de terra facietis mihi, et offeretis super eo holocausta et pacifica vestra, oves vestras et boves in omni loco in quo memoria fuerit nominis mei: veniam ad te, et benedicam tibi.

Spanish

Háganme un altar de tierra, y ofrezcan sobre él sus holocaustos y sus sacrificios de paz, sus ovejas y sus vacas. En cualquier lugar donde yo decida que se honre mi nombre, allí vendré a ustedes y los bendeciré.

Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)

Altar de tierra harás para mí, y sacrificarás sobre él tus holocaustos y tus pacíficos, tus ovejas y tus vacas: en cualquier lugar donde yo hiciere que esté la memoria de mi nombre, vendré á ti, y te bendeciré.

English

You are to make for Me an altar of earth, and sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and peace offerings, your sheep and goats and cattle. In every place where I cause My name to be remembered, I will come to you and bless you.

✦ What the text says

Summary

The verse instructs the making of an earthen altar and specifies which offerings are to be sacrificed on it. It then promises that in whatever place the divine name is invoked, a divine visitation and blessing will follow.

Key words

miz.Bach ("altar of", H4196) — construct form linking directly to 'a.da.Mah ("earth", H0127G), producing "altar of earth" rather than a free-standing noun phrase.
ta.'a.seh ("you will make", H6213H) — qal imperfect, 2nd person masculine singular, giving the instruction a future/durative sense addressed to one individual.
za.vach.Ta ("you will sacrifice", H2076) — sequential perfect (vav + perfect) continuing the force of the preceding imperfect ta.'a.seh; this construction chains a second instruction onto the first as part of the same directive sequence.
'az.Kir ("I will cause to be remembered", H2142) — hiphil (causative) imperfect, 1st person; the causative stem marks the subject as the one who brings about the remembering, not merely one who is remembered.
ve.rakh.Ti ("I will bless", H1288) — piel (intensive) sequential perfect, 1st person, continuing the sequence begun by 'a.Vo' ("I will come", H0935G): the coming and the blessing are presented as one connected event.

What the text says

The sentence opens with the qal imperfect ta.'a.seh, second-person masculine singular, addressed grammatically to one recipient, followed by the sequential perfect za.vach.Ta. This imperfect-then-perfect pattern is a standard Biblical Hebrew way of stringing together instructions: the second verb form does not introduce a new independent statement but extends the directive quality of the first. The four offering terms — 'o.lo.Tei.kha ("your burnt offerings"), she.la.Mei.kha ("your peace offerings"), tzo.ne.kha ("your sheep"), be.ka.Re.kha ("your cattle") — are each construct nouns bearing the second-person singular suffix -kha, maintaining the singular address throughout the list of items to be sacrificed.

The final clause shifts to first-person verbs describing divine action: the hiphil 'az.Kir denotes causing the name to be remembered/invoked, and the two verbs 'a.Vo' ("I will come") and ve.rakh.Ti ("I will bless") are linked by the same imperfect-then-sequential-perfect pattern seen earlier, presenting "coming" and "blessing" as a single continuous promised action tied to the place where the name is invoked.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew addresses a singular "you" (-kha suffixes, ta.'a.seh), while the LXX (ποιήσετέ, θύσετε, ὑμῶν) and the Vulgate (facietis, offeretis, vestra, vestras) use plural forms throughout, addressing a group rather than an individual.

For 'az.Kir ("I will cause to be remembered," hiphil of H2142), the LXX renders ἐπονομάσω ("I shall name/pronounce"), a different verbal root, while the Vulgate uses "memoria fuerit nominis mei" ("there will be memory of my name"), an impersonal construction that does not preserve the first-person causative form found in the Hebrew.

This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.