Exodus 29:24

Summary

The verse instructs that all the previously mentioned items be placed in the hands of Aaron and his sons, who are then to wave them as a tenufah ("wave-offering", H8573) before Yehovah. The action follows a sequence of ritual gestures using sequential perfect verbs typical of procedural instruction.

Key words

• sam.Ta ("you will put", H7760H) — qal sequential perfect, 2nd person masculine singular; continues a chain of prior instructions, addressed to Moses as the one performing the ritual.
• ka.Pei ("[the] hands of", H3709G) — feminine dual construct; the dual form specifically marks the pair of hands (of Aaron, then repeated for the sons), grammatically requiring a following genitive.
• he.naf.Ta ("you will wave", H5130B) — hiphil (causative) sequential perfect; the causative stem indicates that the subject causes the object to move in the waving motion, distinct from a simple qal "to wave."
• te.nu.Fah ("a wave-offering", H8573) — feminine singular noun, from the same root as he.naf.Ta; functions as an adverbial accusative describing the manner/result of the waving action ("wave them, [as] a wave-offering").
• 'o.Tam ("them", H0853 + H9038) — direct object marker with 3rd person masculine plural suffix, referring back to ha.Kol ("everything", H3605) from earlier in the verse — the items placed in the hands are now the object of the waving.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence continues a sequence begun earlier in the chapter, marked by the narrative ve- prefix attached to sequential perfect verbs (ve-sam.Ta, ve-he.naf.Ta). This verb form indicates consecutive ritual actions: first placing, then waving. The object of the first verb is ha.Kol ("the all/everything," H3605), a generic term referring to items specified in preceding verses, positioned "on the hands of" (al kappei) Aaron and, separately, "on the hands of" his sons — the phrase kappei is repeated for each party rather than combined, giving distinct emphasis to each set of hands.

The second clause shifts to the hiphil verb he.naf.Ta, whose causative stem denotes causing an object to move in a waving motion, followed by the cognate noun tenufah, from the same root (נוף), functioning almost as an internal object reinforcing the verb's action ("you shall wave them [as] a waving"). The final phrase, li-fnei Yehovah ("before Yehovah," H9005 + H6440G + H3068G), literally "to the face of Yehovah," specifies the direction or presence toward which the gesture is performed.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders he.naf.Ta ("you will wave") as ἀφοριεῖς ("you will set apart/designate"), and tenufah ("wave-offering") as ἀφόρισμα ("a thing set apart"), shifting the semantic emphasis from a physical waving gesture to an act of separation or consecration. The Vulgate similarly departs from the waving imagery, using sanctificabis eos elevans ("you shall sanctify them, lifting [them]"), combining a verb of sanctification with a participle of lifting, rather than a direct equivalent of the Hebrew's repeated wave-root vocabulary.