Exodus 29:36

Summary

The verse instructs that a young bull be offered as a chaTat ("sin offering", H2403H) on "the day" associated with the kipurim ("atonements", H3725), and that the altar itself be purged, anointed, and consecrated. The sequence moves from the sacrificial animal to the ritual treatment of the altar structure.

Key words

• Far ("a young bull of", H6499) — masculine singular noun in construct state, linking directly to chaTat, forming the phrase "bull of sin-offering."
• ta'aSeh ("you will offer", H6213I) — qal imperfect, denoting a future or repeated action performed by the addressee (masculine singular "you").
• kipurim ("atonements", H3725) — masculine plural noun with the definite article ha-, referring to the atonement-rites as a category, distinct from a single act.
• chiTeta ("you will purge/de-sin", H2398) — piel sequential perfect, an intensive verbal form built on the same root as chaTat but describing an action performed on the altar rather than the offering itself.
• bekhapperkha ("in your making atonement", H3722A + H9041) — piel infinitive construct with a pronominal suffix, forming a temporal clause: "while/when you atone."

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built as a chain of verbs governed by sequential (vav-consecutive) forms: ta'aSeh (imperfect) sets the base action, then chiTeta and mashachta (both sequential perfects) continue the narrative sequence — "you shall offer... and you shall purge... and you shall anoint." This grammatical chaining presents the ritual as a single continuous procedure rather than three separate commands.

The noun Far chaTat ("bull of sin-offering") is a construct pair, meaning the bull is defined categorically by its purpose. The verb chiTeta, built on the same root but in the piel stem, does not repeat "offer a sin-offering" — it denotes an intensive action of purging or decontaminating the altar, distinct from the sacrificial act described by ta'aSeh. The infinitive constructs bekhapperkha ("in your atoning") and le-qadesho ("to consecrate it") mark, respectively, the circumstance and the purpose of the anointing that follows.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew la-yom ("for/to the day", H3117G) is singular, referring to a single specified day of kipurim. The Vulgate renders this as "per singulos dies" ("through each of the days"), introducing a distributive/plural sense not present in the Hebrew singular. The LXX preserves the singular with "τῇ ἡμέρᾳ τοῦ καθαρισμοῦ" ("for the day of purification"), closer to the Hebrew structure, though it renders the plural kipurim with the singular Greek noun καθαρισμός ("purification"). Modern translations such as BSB and SBLIBRE follow the Vulgate's distributive reading ("each day"), diverging from the singular form found in the Hebrew and the LXX.