Exodus 29:12

Summary

Exodus 29:12 instructs the application of the bull's blood to the altar's horns using the finger, followed by pouring out the remaining blood at the altar's base. The verse contains two distinct actions with the blood: a precise, manual application and a full disposal of the remainder.

Key words

• la.kach.Ta ("you will take", H3947G) — qal sequential perfect, continuing the chain of instructions begun earlier in the passage; expresses a required future action tied to prior commands.
• Dam ("blood of", H1818) — masculine singular construct, linking "blood" to "the bull" (ha.Par); appears twice in the verse, first in construct form and later in absolute form (ha.Dam, "the blood").
• kar.Not ("horns of", H7161A) — feminine plural construct, connecting "horns" to "the altar"; the construct chain specifies the exact location for the blood application.
• 'etz.ba.'E.kha ("your finger", H0676 + H9021) — feminine singular construct noun with a second-person masculine possessive suffix, specifying the instrument of application as the officiant's own finger.
• tish.Pokh ("you will pour out", H8210G) — qal imperfect, marking a distinct grammatical form from the preceding sequential perfects; denotes the ongoing or resultative pouring of the remaining blood.

What the text says

The verse is built from two parallel command sequences joined by the narrative ve ("and", H9001). The first sequence uses two sequential perfects — la.kach.Ta ("you will take") and na.ta.Tah ("you will put", H5414H) — which continue a chain of procedural instructions typical of ritual legal Hebrew, where each verb builds on the previous one to form a continuous action sequence. This first action is spatially precise: blood is taken mi-Dam ha-Par ("some of the blood of the bull") and placed 'al-kar.Not ha-miz.Be.ach ("on the horns of the altar") using be-'etz.ba.'E.kha ("with your finger"), a construct chain that specifies both the location (horns) and the instrument (finger) with grammatical precision.

The second part of the verse shifts to a different construction: ve-'et-kol-ha-Dam tish.Pokh ("and all the blood you will pour out"). Here the direct object marker 'et (H0853) marks kol-ha-Dam ("all the blood") as the object fronted before the verb tish.Pokh, an imperfect form rather than a sequential perfect. This fronting places grammatical emphasis on the totality of the remaining blood before specifying the action. The destination is 'el-ye.Sod ha-miz.Be.ach ("to the base of the altar"), another construct chain marking the terminal point of the action, mirroring the construct chain used for the horns in the first clause.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders kol-ha-Dam ("all the blood") as τὸ δὲ λοιπὸν πᾶν αἷμα ("but all the remaining blood"), adding the notion of "remainder" (λοιπόν) that is not explicit in the Hebrew kol ("all", H3605) alone, though this sense is implied by context since some blood was already used on the horns. The Vulgate similarly reads reliquum autem sanguinem ("but the remaining blood"), matching the LXX's explicit "remainder" language rather than the Hebrew's simpler "all the blood."