Leviticus 14:4

Summary

The verse describes the priest's instructions for the purification ritual: he commands that specific materials be brought for the person being purified — two live pure birds, cedar wood, scarlet (thread), and hyssop.

Key words

• tzi.Vah ("he will command", H6680) — piel sequential perfect, continuing the narrative chain; the intensive stem marks an authoritative directive rather than a simple statement.
• mi.ta.Her ("[one] purifying himself", H2891) — hithpael participle, reflexive form describing the person as one undergoing/performing the purification process on himself, not merely being acted upon.
• tzi.po.Rim ("birds", H6833) with she.tei ("two", H8147) in construct — a dual cardinal number governing the plural noun, specifying an exact pair.
• chai.Yot ("living", H2416A) and te.ho.Rot ("pure", H2889) — feminine plural adjectives agreeing with tzi.po.Rim, both qualifying the required state of the birds simultaneously (alive and ritually clean).
• 'Etz ("wood of", H6086G) — construct form directly linking to 'E.rez ("cedar", H0730), forming the compound "cedar-wood" rather than two separate items.

What the text says

The verse opens with two sequential perfect verbs joined by the narrative ve ("and", H9001): tzi.Vah ("he will command") and la.Kach ("someone will take", H3947G). This construction continues a chain of narrative action begun earlier in the passage, presenting the priest's command and the subsequent taking of materials as connected steps in a procedure.

The phrase la.mi.ta.Her ("for the one purifying himself") uses a hithpael participle, which grammatically frames the subject as engaged in a reflexive process — the purification is presented as something happening to and through this person, rather than a status externally imposed. The materials required are listed using construct chains: she.tei-tzi.po.Rim ("two of birds") specifies quantity tightly bound to the noun, and 'Etz 'E.rez ("wood of cedar") functions as a single compound item rather than two coordinated nouns. Similarly, she.Ni to.La.'at ("scarlet of a worm", H8144 + H8438B) is a construct pair naming a dye source together with its color, not scarlet and worm as separate objects.

The birds are doubly qualified by chai.Yot ("living") and te.ho.Rot ("pure"), both feminine plural adjectives modifying tzi.po.Rim. Hebrew grammar here places both conditions as simultaneous requirements attached directly to the noun, rather than as separate clauses.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders she.Ni to.La.'at ("scarlet of a worm") as κεκλωσμένον κόκκινον ("spun/twisted scarlet"), emphasizing the thread's manufacture rather than its source insect named in the Hebrew construct. The Vulgate's vermiculum preserves a closer link to the worm-derived origin of the color, paralleling the Hebrew construct more directly than the Greek. The Vulgate also adds an explanatory clause, quibus vesci licitum est ("which are lawful to eat"), describing the birds — a phrase not present in the Hebrew or the Greek text as given.