Exodus 29:11

Summary

The verse instructs that the bull be slaughtered in the presence of Yehovah, at the entrance of the tent of meeting. It continues a sequence of ritual actions using a chained verb form typical of procedural instruction in Biblical Hebrew.

Key words

• sha.chaT.ta ("you will slaughter", H7819A) — qal sequential perfect, second person masculine singular; this form continues a prior command in a chain of actions, functioning like "and you shall slaughter" within an ongoing procedure.
• Par ("young bull", H6499) — masculine singular noun with the definite article ha ("the", H9009), marking a bull already introduced earlier in the passage.
• fNei ("before/face of", H6440G) — masculine plural construct noun, part of the phrase li-fNei ("to the face of"), the standard idiom for "in the presence of."
• Petach ("entrance of", H6607) — masculine singular construct noun, linking to 'Ohel to form "entrance of the tent."
• mo'Ed ("meeting", H4150I) — masculine singular noun completing the construct chain 'Ohel mo'Ed, "tent of meeting."

What the text says

The verse opens with the narrative vav (ve, H9001) attached to sha.chaT.ta, a qal sequential perfect. This grammatical form is characteristic of instructional or narrative sequences in Hebrew: rather than a simple future, it marks continuation from a previous verb of the same kind, producing the sense "and you shall slaughter" as the next step in a series of ritual actions.

The direct object is marked by 'et (H0853, untranslated) before ha-Par, "the bull," with the definite article indicating the animal has already been specified earlier in the discourse. The location and orientation of the action are given through two construct chains. First, li-fNei Yehovah ("to the face of Yehovah") uses the construct noun fNei (plural of "face") governing the divine name, an idiom conveying spatial and relational presence rather than a literal reference to a face. Second, Petach 'Ohel mo'Ed forms a triple construct chain — "entrance of [the] tent of [the] meeting" — where each noun depends grammatically on the next, producing a single compound location: "the entrance of the tent of meeting."

The sentence structure places the verb first, then object, then two prepositional/construct phrases specifying presence and location, a common order in Hebrew ritual instruction texts.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders li-fNei Yehovah ("before the face of Yehovah") as ἐναντίον Κυρίου ("before/opposite the Lord"), and Petach ("entrance of") as παρὰ τὰς θύρας ("beside the doors"), using a plural noun for "doors" where the Hebrew has a singular construct noun for "entrance." The Vulgate similarly uses in conspectu Domini ("in the sight of the Lord") for li-fNei Yehovah, and juxta ostium ("next to the door") for Petach, singular like the Hebrew. The Spanish and English translations follow the Hebrew construct structure more closely with "before/in the presence of Yehovah" and "at the entrance of the tent of meeting."