Exodus 29:44

Summary

The verse describes God's declaration that he will consecrate four things: the tent of meeting, the altar, Aaron, and his sons, so that Aaron and his sons may serve as priests. The Hebrew uses the same verb "to consecrate" twice, in two different grammatical forms, splitting the four objects into two pairs.

Key words

• ki.dash.Ti ("I will consecrate", H6942G) — piel sequential perfect, continuing the narrative sequence; governs the first pair of objects (tent, altar).
• 'a.ka.Desh ("I will consecrate", H6942G) — same root, but imperfect form, expressing the ongoing/future aspect; governs the second pair (Aaron, sons).
• 'O.hel ("tent of", H0168G) — masculine singular construct, forming a bound phrase with the following noun.
• mo.'Ed ("meeting", H4150I) — completes the construct chain 'ohel mo'ed, "tent of meeting."
• kha.Hen ("serve as priests", H3547) — piel infinitive construct with prefixed le- ("to"), expressing purpose: "in order to serve as priests."

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built as a chiasmus around the verb qadash ("to consecrate", H6942G), which appears twice in different conjugations. The first occurrence, ki.dash.Ti, is a sequential perfect placed before its objects — "I will consecrate the tent of meeting and the altar." The second occurrence, 'a.ka.Desh, is an imperfect placed after its objects — "Aaron and his sons I will consecrate." This produces a verb-object / object-verb pattern (V-O-O // O-O-V) that groups the four consecrated items into two pairs: sacred objects (tent, altar) and sacred persons (Aaron, sons), each framed by its own instance of the same root.

The final clause uses the infinitive construct kha.Hen with the preposition le- ("to/in order to"), expressing the purpose of consecrating Aaron and his sons: "to serve as priests." This infinitive is followed by li ("to me" / "for me"), formed from the preposition plus the first-person suffix, marking the priestly service as directed toward the speaker.

Differences between versions

The Septuagint preserves the double use of the verb, with ἁγιάσω ("I will sanctify") appearing twice — once for the tent and altar, once for Aaron and his sons — matching the Hebrew's two-part structure. The Vulgate, however, uses Sanctificabo ("I will sanctify") only once, applying it to all four objects together, and then shifts the final purpose clause into a subjunctive construction, "ut sacerdotio fungantur mihi" ("that they may perform priesthood for me"), rather than mirroring the infinitive-plus-suffix structure of the Hebrew le-khahen li.