Exodus 30:32

Summary

Exodus 30:32 continues the regulation of the sacred anointing oil described in the preceding verses. It prohibits pouring this oil on the skin of an ordinary person and prohibits replicating its exact formula, closing with a double declaration that the mixture is holy.

Key words

• yiSakh ("it will be poured", H3251) — hophal imperfect, a passive-causative form: the action of pouring/anointing is imposed on the subject rather than performed by it, marking a strict prohibition on future action.
• matKunto ("its proportion", H4971) — feminine singular construct with 3ms suffix, meaning literally "the composition/measurement of it," referring back to the oil's specific recipe.
• ta'aSu ("you must make", H6213H) — qal imperfect, 2nd person masculine plural, addressing the community collectively as active agents forbidden from producing an equivalent.
• kamoHu ("like it", H3644G + H9033) — preposition with 3ms suffix, restricting the prohibition specifically to something matching "it" (the oil's formula).
• Qodesh ("a holy thing", H6944G) — appears twice in the verse (lines 14 and 16), each time as a bare noun without article, used predicatively.

What the text says

The verse divides into two prohibitions followed by a declarative statement. The first prohibition uses bo ("in") + besar ("flesh of") + 'adam ("a person") as the object marked by 'al ("on"), with the verb yiSakh in hophal — grammatically foregrounding the passive reception of the oil rather than an agent applying it. The second prohibition shifts to an active 2mp verb, ta'aSu, explicitly addressing "you all" as the ones who might attempt to reproduce the formula, restricted by kamoHu ("like it") to an exact replica of matkunto ("its proportion").

The closing clause repeats Qodesh twice, once with the pronoun hu' ("it", H1931) and once with the verb yihyeh ("it will be", H1961) plus the prepositional phrase lakhem ("to you"). The doubling emphasizes the item's status as holy both in itself and in its ongoing effect for the addressees.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders line 2's Hebrew besar 'adam ("flesh of a person") simply as anthropou ("of a man"), omitting a direct equivalent for besar ("flesh"). The Vulgate preserves both elements: "Caro hominis" ("flesh of man"). For the prohibition on replication, the Hebrew verb ta'aSu is active ("you shall make"), which the Vulgate matches with active "facietis," while the LXX renders it as passive, poiethēsetai ("it will not be made"), shifting the grammatical subject. In the final doubled declaration, the LXX uses two different nouns, hagion and hagiasma, and the Vulgate similarly varies with "sanctificatum" and "sanctum," where the Hebrew repeats the same noun Qodesh both times.