Leviticus 1:15

Summary

This verse describes three ritual actions performed by the priest with a bird offering: bringing it to the altar, nipping off its head, burning it, and draining its blood against the side of the altar. The Hebrew presents these as a chain of sequential actions using consecutive verb forms.

Key words

• hikriv ("he will present", H7126H) — hiphil (causative) sequential perfect; the priest causes the bird to draw near the altar, opening the ritual sequence.
• malak ("he will nip off", H4454) — qal sequential perfect; a simple, non-causative action, the priest personally pinches off the head rather than causing another to do it.
• hiqtir ("he will make [it] smoke", H6999A) — hiphil sequential perfect; causative, "to make go up in smoke," referring to the burning of the head on the altar.
• nimtzah ("it will be drained out", H4680) — niphal sequential perfect; a passive/reflexive form, meaning the blood is drained without a stated agent — the blood itself is the grammatical subject.
• ro'sh ("head", H7218A) — construct noun with pronominal suffix ("its head"), marking the specific body part singled out for the nipping action.

What the text says

The verse consists of four verbs joined by the narrative vav ("and"), each in the sequential perfect form that carries forward the ritual procedure begun earlier in the chapter: hikriv ("he will present"), malak ("he will nip off"), hiqtir ("he will make smoke"), and nimtzah ("it will be drained out"). The first three verbs have the priest as their explicit or implied subject, forming a continuous causative and simple-action sequence. The final verb, nimtzah, shifts to the niphal (passive/reflexive) stem, making "blood" (damo, "its blood," H1818) the grammatical subject rather than the priest — the text does not state who performs the draining, only that it occurs.

The word hamizbecha ("toward the altar") carries a directional he (H9011) suffix, marking motion toward the altar for the burning action, distinct from the plain form hamizbeach ("the altar") used elsewhere in the verse with the preposition 'el ("to"). The phrase kir hamizbeach ("the wall/side of the altar", H7023) specifies the location where the blood is drained, using a construct noun indicating a physical architectural feature of the altar rather than a general area.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders malak with ἀποκνίσει ("he will twist off"), while the Vulgate expands this single Hebrew verb into two clauses: "retorto ad collum capite" ("with the head twisted at the neck") and "ac rupto vulneris loco" ("and the wound place broken"), adding descriptive detail absent from the Hebrew's single verb. For kir hamizbeach ("wall/side of the altar"), the LXX uses βάσιν ("base") rather than a term corresponding to "wall," while the Vulgate has "crepidinem altaris" ("the ledge/rim of the altar") — three versions describing the blood's disposal point with different architectural terms.