Exodus 29:37

Summary

The verse closes the altar-consecration instructions: for seven days atonement is to be made on the altar and it is to be consecrated, so that it becomes "holiness of holinesses," and anyone who touches it will become holy. The sentence moves from ongoing ritual action to a resulting permanent state of the altar.

Key words

• shiv'At ("seven", H7651) — construct form linking to yamim, forming "seven of days," a set duration for the atonement rite.
• te.kha.Per ("you will make atonement", H3722A) — piel imperfect, the intensive stem marking a repeated or effectual ritual action performed over the seven days.
• ki.dash.Ta ("you will consecrate", H6942G) — piel sequential perfect, continuing the narrative chain from the imperfect verb, active consecration performed by the addressee.
• Ko.desh ("holiness of", H6944G) construct + ka.da.Shim ("holinesses", H6944G) plural — a construct chain doubling the same root, intensifying the noun to express a superlative degree.
• yik.Dash ("it will be holy", H6942G) — qal imperfect of the same root used earlier in piel, here expressing a resulting state ("will become holy") rather than an active act of consecrating.

What the text says

The clause opens with the temporal phrase shiv.'At yamim fronted before the verb te.kha.Per, marking the seven-day span as the frame for the entire action rather than a mere adverbial afterthought. The verb te.kha.Per is piel imperfect, describing a repeated ritual act ("you will make atonement") extending across those days. The narrative vav on ve.ki.dash.Ta shifts to sequential perfect, continuing the same subject's action ("and you will consecrate it") as the next step following the atonement period. A second sequential perfect, ve.ha.Yah ("and it will be"), introduces the resulting condition of the altar: qodesh qadashim, a construct doubling of the root H6944 that intensifies the noun rather than simply repeating it, producing "holiness of holinesses."

The final clause shifts stem: the participle ha.noge'a ("the one touching", H5060) identifies anyone who touches the altar, and the verb describing what happens to that person, yik.Dash, is qal imperfect — the same root H6942 used earlier in piel for the deliberate act of consecrating, but here in the simple stem, expressing that the toucher simply "becomes holy" as a consequence, without an agent explicitly performing the consecration.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew construct doubling qodesh qadashim ("holiness of holinesses") is rendered in the LXX as ἅγιον τοῦ ἁγίου, using a singular genitive ἁγίου where the Hebrew has the plural qadashim. The Vulgate's "Sanctum sanctorum" mirrors the Hebrew construct pattern more closely with a plural genitive form.