Exodus 29:25

Summary

The verse instructs that the items previously taken from the hands (of the ordained priests) be taken again and burned upon the altar, added on top of the burnt offering, producing a pleasing odor before Yehovah — described as a fire offering to Yehovah.

Key words

• la.kach.Ta ("you will take", H3947G) — qal sequential perfect, continuing the narrative chain of instructions given to Moses; the "you" is masculine singular.
• hik.tar.Ta ("you will make [them] smoke", H6999A) — hiphil (causative) sequential perfect: the subject causes the object to go up in smoke, i.e., to burn on the altar.
• miz.Be.cha ("altar", H4196) with the directional he (H9011) — the noun takes a suffixed "toward" marker, indicating motion toward the altar ("to the altar-ward").
• Rei.ach ("odor of", H7381) in construct with ni.Cho.ach ("soothing", H5207) — a construct chain meaning "an odor of soothing/quieting," describing the effect of the smoke.
• 'i.Sheh ("[is] a fire offering", H0801) — a noun functioning predicatively with the pronoun hu' ("it", H1931), naming the category of offering.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built as two coordinated instructions joined by the narrative ve ("and", H9001): first ve-la.kach.Ta 'o.Tam mi.ya.Dam ("and you will take them from their hand"), then ve-hik.tar.Ta ha.miz.Be.cha 'al-ha.'o.Lah ("and you will make [them] smoke, altar-ward, upon the burnt offering"). The verb hik.tar.Ta is hiphil, marking causation — the priest causes the substance to become smoke, rather than simply "burning" it in a general sense. The directional he attached to miz.Be.cha signals movement toward the altar as the destination of the action, a nuance not always visible in translations that render it simply as "on the altar."

The phrase le-Rei.ach ni.Cho.ach li-f.Nei Yah.weh ("for an odor of soothing before Yehovah") uses a construct chain (Rei.ach + ni.Cho.ach) describing the purpose or result of the burning — an odor characterized by "soothing" or "quieting" quality — positioned "before the face of" (li-f.Nei, construct plural of "face") Yehovah. The closing clause, 'i.Sheh hu' la-Yah.weh ("a fire offering it [is] to Yehovah"), uses the pronoun hu' to affirm identity: the object under discussion is classified as 'i.Sheh, a term denoting an offering consumed by fire.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders 'i.Sheh ("fire offering", H0801) as κάρπωμα ("fruit-offering" or "offering," a term related to produce/fruit) rather than a term tied explicitly to fire, differing from the Hebrew's fire-associated vocabulary. The Vulgate gives "quia oblatio ejus est" ("because it is his offering"), introducing a causal connector ("quia") and a possessive ("ejus," his) not present in the Hebrew, which simply states 'i.Sheh hu' la-Yah.weh ("it is a fire offering to Yehovah") without a causal clause or possessive pronoun.