Exodus 30:8

Summary

The verse specifies when Aaron must burn incense in relation to the daily lamp-tending: at the time he lifts up the lamps between the two evenings, he is to make the incense smoke as a continual offering before Yehovah, for all generations.

Key words

• ha'aLot ("lifts up", H5927H) — hiphil infinitive construct of the verb "to go up," used causatively for tending/raising the lamps; introduced by be- it forms a temporal clause, "when Aaron causes... to go up."
• 'arBayim ("evenings", H6153) — masculine dual noun; the dual form marks the twilight period as a bounded pair of moments (dusk), not a single point in time.
• yaqtiRennah ("he will make it smoke", H6999A + H9034) — hiphil imperfect 3rd person masculine with a 3rd feminine singular object suffix ("it/her"); the suffix anticipates the feminine noun qetoret that follows later in the clause.
• qeToret taMid ("incense of continuity", H7004 + H8548) — construct chain; tamid is a noun meaning "continuity/perpetuity" functioning here to describe the incense as a standing, recurring offering rather than a one-time act.
• ledoroteiKhem ("to your generations", H1755 + H9026) — construct noun with 2nd person masculine plural suffix, marking the instruction as applying across successive generations of the addressed group.

What the text says

The sentence is built around a temporal infinitive clause, u-be-ha'alot 'Aharon 'et-ha-nerot ("and when Aaron lifts up the lamps"), which sets the timing for the main verb. The time marker bein ha'arbayim ("between the evenings") uses a dual noun form, situating the action within the paired boundary of dusk rather than a single instant. The main verb yaqtirennah carries a feminine object suffix that grammatically points forward to qetoret ("incense"), which only appears afterward in the sentence — the Hebrew places the verb-with-suffix before its own referent noun, a construction not preserved in English or other target-language word order.

The phrase qetoret tamid is a construct chain literally "incense of continuity," where tamid functions to mark the offering as a fixed, recurring rite rather than a single event. The clause closes with lifnei YHWH ("before the face of Yehovah") locating the action in the presence of the deity, and ledoroteikhem ("for your generations"), a construct chain with a 2nd person plural suffix extending the instruction's applicability beyond the immediate addressees.

Differences between versions

The Vulgate renders ha'alot ("lifts up") as collocabit ("will place/arrange") and replaces the dual bein ha'arbayim ("between the evenings") with the singular ad vesperum ("at evening"), losing the twofold temporal marking present in the Hebrew dual. The LXX text as given appears abbreviated, omitting explicit mention of the lamps and the evening timing found in the Hebrew, and uses γενεὰς αὐτῶν ("their generations") with a third-person suffix where the Hebrew doroteikhem has a second-person suffix ("your generations").