Leviticus 14:25
וְשָׁחַט אֶת־כֶּבֶשׂ הָֽאָשָׁם וְלָקַח הַכֹּהֵן מִדַּם הָֽאָשָׁם וְנָתַן עַל־תְּנוּךְ אֹֽזֶן־הַמִּטַּהֵר הַיְמָנִית וְעַל־בֹּהֶן יָדוֹ הַיְמָנִית וְעַל־בֹּהֶן רַגְלוֹ הַיְמָנִֽית׃
✦ Hebrew interlinear
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✦ The same verse in five languages
וְשָׁחַט֮ אֶת־כֶּ֣בֶשׂ הָֽאָשָׁם֒ וְלָקַ֤ח הַכֹּהֵן֙ מִדַּ֣ם הָֽאָשָׁ֔ם וְנָתַ֛ן עַל־תְּנ֥וּךְ אֹֽזֶן־הַמִּטַּהֵ֖ר הַיְמָנִ֑ית וְעַל־בֹּ֤הֶן יָדוֹ֙ הַיְמָנִ֔ית וְעַל־בֹּ֥הֶן רַגְל֖וֹ הַיְמָנִֽית׃
καὶ σφάξει τὸν ἀμνὸν τῆς πλημμελίας, καὶ λήμψεται ὁ ἱερεὺς ἀπὸ τοῦ αἵματος τοῦ τῆς πλημμελίας, καὶ ἐπιθήσει ἐπὶ τὸν λοβὸν τοῦ ὠτὸς τοῦ δεξιοῦ τοῦ καθαριζομένου καὶ ἐπὶ τὸ ἄκρον τῆς χειρὸς τῆς δεξιᾶς καὶ ἐπὶ τὸ ἄκρον τοῦ ποδὸς τοῦ δεξιοῦ.
Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0
Latin (Vulgate)
immolatoque agno, de sanguine ejus ponet super extremum auriculæ dextræ illius qui mundatur, et super pollices manus ejus ac pedis dextri:
Luego degollará el cordero de la ofrenda por la culpa, tomará un poco de la sangre y se la untará a la persona en el lóbulo de la oreja derecha, en el pulgar de la mano derecha y en el dedo gordo del pie derecho.
Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)
Luego degollará el cordero de la culpa, y tomará el sacerdote de la sangre de la culpa, y pondrá sobre la ternilla de la oreja derecha del que se purifica, y sobre el pulgar de su mano derecha, y sobre el pulgar de su pie derecho.
And after he slaughters the lamb for the guilt offering, the priest is to take some of the blood of the guilt offering and put it on the right earlobe of the one to be cleansed, on the thumb of his right hand, and on the big toe of his right foot.
✦ What the text says
Summary
The verse describes a ritual sequence in the purification rite: the kohen ("priest", H3548) slaughters the guilt-offering lamb, takes some of its blood, and applies it to three specific points on the body of the person being purified — the right earlobe, right thumb, and right big toe.
Key words
- sha.Chat ("he will cut [the] throat of", H7819A) — qal sequential perfect; continues the narrative chain of ritual actions begun earlier in the chapter.
- 'a.Sham ("guilt offering", H0817) — appears twice in construct chains (Ke.ves ha.'a.Sham, "lamb of the guilt offering"; Dam ha.'a.Sham, "blood of the guilt offering"), marking the animal and its blood as belonging to this specific offering category.
- mi.ta.Her ("[one] purifying himself", H2891) — hithpael participle, reflexive form, describing the person as one actively undergoing the purification process rather than a passive object.
- y.ma.Nit ("right", H3233G) — feminine singular adjective, repeated three times (verses 25 lines 23, 30, 37), each time agreeing with a feminine noun ('o.zen "ear", yad "hand", regel "foot") to specify the right side for each application.
- na.Tan ("he will put [it]", H5414H) — qal sequential perfect, the final action in the chain, governing the three prepositional phrases introduced by 'al ("on", H5921A).
What the text says
The Hebrew sentence is built as a chain of three sequential perfect verbs — ve.sha.Chat, ve.la.Kach, ve.na.Tan — each joined by the narrative vav (H9001), producing a tightly linked sequence: "and he will slaughter... and he will take... and he will put." This verbal chain structure marks the ritual as a fixed, ordered procedure rather than three independent statements. The subject shifts implicitly: the slaughtering appears to continue an action already in progress in context, while ha.Kohen ("the priest", H3548) is explicitly named as the subject of "taking" the blood, and by continuity of the sequential chain, also of "putting" it.
The three body locations — te.Nukh 'o.zen ("lobe of ear"), bo.hen yad ("thumb of hand"), bo.hen regel ("big toe of foot") — are each construct chains, and each is followed by the adjective y.ma.Nit ("right"), agreeing in gender with the preceding feminine noun. The repetition of "right" three times in the Hebrew text emphasizes precision of location for each application of blood, a structural feature the sequential apposition preserves clearly in Hebrew but which translations render as three separate phrases without the internal repetition being as rhythmically marked.
Differences between versions
The Vulgate compresses the sentence, omitting an explicit rendering of "priest" as subject of taking the blood and folding the actions of slaughtering and taking blood into a single participial construction (immolatoque agno, de sanguine ejus), where the Hebrew keeps three distinct sequential verbs. The LXX renders te.Nukh ("lobe", H8571) as λοβόν and bo.hen ("thumb/big toe", H0931) as ἄκρον ("extremity/tip"), a more generic term than the Hebrew's more anatomically specific "thumb/big toe."
This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.