Exodus 29:3

Summary

The verse instructs that certain items (referred to only as "them") be placed into a single basket and then brought forward in that basket, alongside a young bull and two rams. The Hebrew uses two sequential verb forms to mark consecutive actions within a larger ritual sequence.

Key words

• na.ta.Ta ("you will put", H5414H) — qal sequential perfect, second person masculine; continues a chain of prior instructions, indicating the next action to perform.
• hik.rav.Ta ("you will bring near", H7126H) — hiphil (causative) sequential perfect; the causative stem marks an act of presenting or offering something, distinct from ordinary movement.
• sal ("a basket", H5536) — masculine singular noun, first occurring without the article (sal 'echad, "one basket") and later with the definite article (ba-sal, "in the basket"), showing the same object referenced anew after its first mention.
• shenei ("two of", H8147) — cardinal number in construct form, meaning it grammatically links to the following noun ("two of the rams") rather than standing alone.
• ha-eilim ("the rams", H0352A) — masculine plural noun with definite article, marking these rams as already-specified items from the surrounding context.

What the text says

The sentence is built on two sequential perfects, a common construction in Biblical Hebrew instructional prose where a verb in the perfect form continues a chain begun by an earlier verb (not shown in this verse) rather than referring to a completed past action. The vav prefixed to na.ta.Ta and to hik.rav.Ta is the "narrative" or sequential vav that links this instruction to what precedes it, producing a flow of "and you shall do X, and you shall do Y."

The verb hik.rav.Ta is in the hiphil stem, which is causative in force; the basic root relates to nearness, so the hiphil produces the sense of "causing to draw near" — i.e., presenting or bringing forward — rather than a simple motion verb. The object marker 'oto ("them", H0853 + H9038 suffix) appears twice, once with each verb, referring back to items not named within this verse itself but presumably specified earlier in the passage. The noun sal ("basket") appears first as an indefinite object of placement ("on one basket") and then as a definite object of presentation ("in the basket"), a shift marked by the article ha- attached to it the second time. The final clause lists additional items — "the young bull" (ha-par) and "the two of the rams" (shenei ha-eilim) — joined by the conjunction ve- and marked with the object particle 'et, indicating these are also objects involved in the broader action, though the verb governing them is not repeated in this verse.