Leviticus 1:9

Summary

Leviticus 1:9 describes the washing of the entrails (kereb) and legs of the sacrificial animal with water, followed by the priest burning the entire animal on the altar. The verse closes with a formulaic description of the offering as a 'olah ("burnt offering", H5930A) and an ishesh reach nichoach — a fire offering of soothing odor — for Yehovah (H3068G).

Key words

• yirchatz ("he will wash", H7364) — qal imperfect, third person masculine singular. The subject "he" is not named explicitly in this verse; the form only indicates a singular male actor performing the washing.
• hiqtir ("he will make smoke", H6999A) — hiphil (causative) sequential perfect. This verb differs from yirchatz: the hiphil stem indicates causing the offering to go up in smoke, and its subject, hakohen ("the priest", H3548), is explicitly stated in the same clause.
• kirbo ("its entrails", H7130H) and kera'av ("its legs", H3767) — both nouns appear in construct form with third-person masculine singular suffixes ("its"), linking the body parts directly to the animal.
• ishesh ("a fire offering of", H0801), reach ("an odor of", H7381), and nichoach ("soothing", H5207) — a chain of construct nouns culminating in the adjective, producing a compound expression describing the offering's effect.

What the text says

The verse opens with two coordinated noun phrases — ve-kirbo u-kera'av ("and its entrails and its legs") — placed before the verb yirchatz, a common word-order pattern in Biblical Hebrew for topicalizing the object of an action. The verb itself, yirchatz, is qal imperfect third-person masculine singular, but the sentence does not name its subject within this verse; the grammatical form alone does not indicate whether the actor is the priest or the person bringing the offering.

The narrative then shifts with the sequential form ve-hiqtir, a hiphil construction meaning "and he made [it] go up in smoke." Here the subject is stated explicitly: hakohen, "the priest" (H3548). The direct object marker 'et (H0853) introduces hakol ("everything", H3605) — indicating the priest burns the totality of what remains, directed hamizbecha ("to the altar", H4196), using the directional he suffix.

The closing phrase stacks three construct nouns — ishesh reach nichoach — culminating in the phrase "for Yehovah" (la-Yehovah), forming a fixed liturgical formula that recurs across the sacrificial instructions in this chapter.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew verb yirchatz is singular and does not specify its subject within the verse. The LXX renders this with the plural verb plynousin ("they will wash"), and similarly uses a plural participial construction hoi ta panta ("those [who offer] all things") for the priestly action, differing from the Hebrew's singular hakohen. The Vulgate uses a passive ablative absolute, intestinis et pedibus lotis aqua ("with the entrails and feet having been washed"), avoiding specification of the subject altogether, then explicitly names sacerdos ("the priest") as singular for the burning action, matching the Hebrew hakohen. Some modern translations, such as SBLIBRE, resolve the ambiguity of yirchatz's subject by supplying "the one who offers the victim," a clarification not present in the Hebrew wording of this verse itself.