Exodus 29:23

Summary

The verse lists three specific bread items to be taken: one round loaf, one oiled cake, and one wafer, all drawn from the basket of unleavened bread that is positioned before Yehovah. The sentence is a continuation of a list (likely of items for a ritual offering), using construct chains to specify each bread type.

Key words

khikkar ("a round loaf of", H3603H) — feminine singular construct noun; forms a construct chain with lechem ("bread"), literally "a round-loaf-of bread," specifying the shape of the first item.

challat ("a cake of", H2471) — feminine singular construct noun; begins the second construct chain, "cake-of bread-of oil," stacking three nouns to describe an oil-mixed bread cake.

raqiq ("a wafer", H7550) — masculine singular absolute noun (not construct), paired with 'echad ("one", H0259) in ordinary agreement rather than a construct chain, marking a shift in syntax from the first two items.

sal ("basket of", H5536) — masculine singular construct noun governing ha-matzot ("the unleavened bread", H4682), identifying the source container from which all three items are taken.

liphnei ("before", H6440G) — masculine plural construct form of "face," used prepositionally with Yehovah (H3068G) to indicate spatial/ritual positioning "in the presence of Yehovah."

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence structures the three bread items through two different grammatical strategies. The first two items — khikkar lechem ("round loaf of bread") and challat lechem shemen ("cake of bread of oil") — use construct chains, where each noun is grammatically bound to the next, creating compound descriptive phrases. The numeral 'achat ("one," feminine) follows each phrase in construct form as well, agreeing with the feminine head nouns khikkar and challat. The third item, raqiq echad ("one wafer"), breaks this pattern: raqiq stands in the absolute state, and its accompanying numeral 'echad takes the masculine form, agreeing with the masculine noun raqiq rather than continuing the construct pattern of the previous two nouns.

All three items are then located "from the basket of unleavened bread" (mi-sal ha-matzot), using the preposition min ("from") to indicate source. The relative clause 'asher liphnei Yehovah ("which [is] before Yehovah") specifies the location of this basket, using the construct noun phenei ("face of") to form the idiomatic spatial expression "before/in the presence of."

Differences between versions

The LXX rendering diverges structurally from the Hebrew: it reads "one loaf from oil" (ἄρτον ἕνα ἐξ ἐλαίου) and "one wafer" (λάγανον ἕν), appearing to compress or reorganize the three-item Hebrew list differently than the Masoretic construct chains suggest. The LXX also reads "before Tyrian" (ἔναντι Τυρίου) where the Hebrew text has liphnei Yehovah ("before Yehovah"). The Vulgate follows the Hebrew's three-item structure (tortam, crustulam, laganum) and retains "in conspectu Domini" ("in the sight of the Lord"), aligning with the Hebrew's reference to Yehovah rather than the LXX's variant reading.