Leviticus 10:16

Summary

The verse narrates that Moses searched intensively for the goat designated as the chattat ("sin offering", H2403H) and found it had already been burned, prompting his anger against Aaron's surviving sons, Eleazar and Ithamar.

Key words

• daRosh daRash ("carefully sought", H1875) — the infinitive absolute daRosh followed by the perfect daRash of the same root doubles the verb to intensify the action: Moses did not merely ask but searched thoroughly.
• chaTat ("sin offering", H2403H) — feminine singular noun in construct with se'ir ("male goat", H8163B), naming the specific offering category involved.
• soRaf ("it had been burned", H8313) — pual (intensive passive) perfect, indicating the goat had already undergone burning by an unspecified agent before Moses' discovery.
• notaRim ("remaining", H3498) — niphal participle modifying Eleazar and Ithamar, marking them as the sons of Aaron left alive/present after the deaths of Nadab and Abihu narrated earlier in the chapter.
• yikTzof ("he was angry", H7107) — qal narrative form (vav-consecutive), continuing the story sequence and marking Moses' emotional reaction as the next event.

What the text says

The clause opens with the direct object 'et se'ir hachattat ("the goat of the sin offering") fronted before the verb, a common Hebrew word order for emphasis on the object of search. The doubled verb construction daRosh daRash ("carefully sought / sought thoroughly") is a grammatical device using the infinitive absolute plus the finite perfect of the same root (H1875) to intensify the verb's meaning — a construction Hebrew uses that cannot be replicated by a single English verb without an added adverb like "carefully" or "diligently."

The hinneh ("there!", H2009) introduces the discovery as a vivid, immediate observation within the narrative, followed by soraf in the pual perfect, meaning the goat "had been burned" — the passive form leaves the agent of the burning unspecified in the Hebrew, focusing only on the state discovered by Moses. The narrative then shifts with the vav-consecutive vayyiqtzof ("and he was angry"), sequencing the emotional reaction directly after the discovery. The final participle hannotarim ("the remaining ones", H3498) describes Eleazar and Ithamar not merely as sons of Aaron but specifically as those who remained, a detail tied to the earlier deaths of their brothers in the chapter's context.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the doubled Hebrew verb daRosh daRash with a similar intensifying pattern, zētōn exezētēsen ("seeking, he sought out"), preserving the emphasis. The Vulgate simplifies this to a single verb, cum quæreret ("when he sought"), losing the doubled intensification present in the Hebrew infinitive absolute construction. The LXX also renders chattat as tēs hamartias ("of sin") rather than reproducing the technical term "sin offering" as a fixed category noun.