Exodus 29:19
וְלָקַחְתָּ אֵת הָאַיִל הַשֵּׁנִי וְסָמַךְ אַהֲרֹן וּבָנָיו אֶת־יְדֵיהֶם עַל־רֹאשׁ הָאָֽיִל׃
✦ Hebrew interlinear
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✦ The same verse in five languages
וְלָ֣קַחְתָּ֔ אֵ֖ת הָאַ֣יִל הַשֵּׁנִ֑י וְסָמַ֨ךְ אַהֲרֹ֧ן וּבָנָ֛יו אֶת־יְדֵיהֶ֖ם עַל־רֹ֥אשׁ הָאָֽיִל׃
καὶ λήμψῃ τὸν κριὸν τὸν δεύτερον, καὶ ἐπιθήσει Ἀαρὼν καὶ οἱ υἱοὶ αὐτοῦ τὰς χεῖρας αὐτῶν ἐπὶ τὴν κεφαλὴν τοῦ κριοῦ·
Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0
Latin (Vulgate)
Tolles quoque arietem alterum, super cujus caput Aaron et filii ejus ponent manus.
“Luego tomarás el otro carnero, y Aarón y sus hijos pondrán las manos sobre su cabeza.
Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)
Tomarás luego el otro carnero, y Aarón y sus hijos pondrán sus manos sobre la cabeza del carnero:
Take the second ram, and Aaron and his sons are to lay their hands on its head.
✦ What the text says
Summary
The verse instructs that the second ram be taken, and that Aaron together with his sons place their hands on its head. The Hebrew presents a sequence of two actions: taking the animal and performing the gesture of hand-laying upon it.
Key words
- La.kach.ta ("you will take", H3947G) — qal sequential perfect, second person masculine singular; continues a chain of commanded actions addressed to a single individual (Moses, per context).
- 'A.yil ("ram", H0352A) — masculine singular noun, occurs twice (lines 5 and 20), marking both the animal taken and the animal whose head receives the hands.
- sa.Makh ("he will lay", H5564) — qal sequential perfect, third person masculine singular; the subject follows explicitly as 'a.ha.Ron ("Aaron", H0175).
- ye.dei. ("hands", H3027G) — dual construct form ("hands of"), bound to the suffix Hem ("their", H9028), indicating the paired hands of the group named as subject.
- rosh ("head of", H7218A) — masculine singular construct, linked to ha.'A.yil ("the ram", H0352A + H9009), specifying the location where the hands are placed.
What the text says
The verse opens with the narrative vav on ve.La.kach.ta, continuing a sequence of instructions given in the second person; the subject is not restated because the verb form itself carries "you." The object is ha.'A.yil ha.she.Ni, "the ram, the second," where the ordinal she.Ni ("second", H8145) follows the noun with its own definite article, a common Hebrew pattern of noun-then-ordinal-adjective agreement in definiteness.
The second clause shifts subject through another narrative-vav sequential perfect, ve.sa.Makh ("and he will lay"), now referring grammatically to a third-person singular verb even though it introduces two named subjects: 'a.ha.Ron ("Aaron", H0175) and u.va.Na.v ("and his sons", H1121A with the suffix "his"). This is a case where a verb in the singular precedes a compound subject (Aaron plus sons), a construction visible in the Hebrew morphology but not distinguishable in translation, since English and Spanish renderings typically supply a plural verb ("lay," "pondrán") to match the compound subject.
The object of the laying is 'et-ye.dei.Hem, "their hands," in the dual construct form marked with the object particle 'et (H0853), followed by the locative phrase 'al-rosh ha.'A.yil, "on the head of the ram," where rosh stands in construct relation to the following definite noun.
Differences between versions
No substantive divergence appears among the Hebrew, LXX, and Vulgate: all three preserve the same sequence — taking the second ram, then Aaron and his sons placing hands on its head. The LXX renders the sequential perfect ve.sa.Makh with a future indicative (ἐπιθήσει), and the Vulgate uses a future subjunctive-like construction ("ponent"), both consistent with the Hebrew's forward-looking sequential perfect forms.
This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.