Exodus 24:6

Summary

Moses takes half of the blood from the sacrificed animals, places it in bowls, and throws the other half against the altar. The verse describes a two-part ritual action with the blood divided and used in two distinct ways.

Key words

• yi.Kach ("he took", H3947G) — qal narrative form, marking the first sequential action in the episode.
• cha.Tzi ("half of", H2677) — masculine singular construct noun, appearing twice, each time bound to ha.Dam ("the blood") to indicate a divided quantity ("half of the blood").
• ya.sem ("he put [it]", H7760H) — qal narrative form, the second sequential action, placing the first half of the blood into containers.
• za.Rak ("he sprinkled/threw", H2236) — qal perfect (not narrative vav-form like the others), describing the disposal of the second half of the blood onto the altar.
• miz.Be.ach ("altar", H4196) — masculine singular noun with definite article, the destination of the second portion of blood.

What the text says

The verse is built on a chain of three verbs describing Moses' handling of the blood. The first two verbs, yi.Kach ("he took") and ya.sem ("he put"), are connected by the narrative vav (va, H9001), which strings actions together in sequence: Moses took the blood, then put it in the bowls ('a.ga.Not, H0101). The third verb, za.Rak ("he sprinkled"), breaks this pattern — it is a plain qal perfect rather than a narrative vav-form, and it appears after its subject (cha.Tzi ha.Dam, "the half of the blood") rather than before it, as the other two verbs do. This shift in word order (object-subject before verb, rather than verb-subject-object) places emphasis on the second half of the blood as the topic, distinguishing this clause syntactically from the preceding narrative flow.

The repetition of cha.Tzi ha.Dam ("half of the blood") in construct form twice in the verse structurally splits the blood into two portions with two different fates: one stored in 'a.ga.Not ("bowls"), the other applied directly to the miz.Be.ach ("altar"). The preposition 'al ("on", H5921A) indicates the blood lands upon the altar itself, rather than in front of it or beside it.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders za.Rak ("he sprinkled") as προσέχεεν ("poured toward/against"), and the Vulgate uses fudit ("he poured out"), both differing from the more forceful throwing or dashing sense implied by za.Rak in the Hebrew.