Leviticus 14:51

Summary

The verse describes a purification ritual for a house: the priest takes cedar wood, hyssop, scarlet (crimson) material, and a live bird, dips them in the blood of a slaughtered bird mixed with fresh water, and sprinkles the house seven times.

Key words

• ta.Val ("he will dip", H2881) — qal sequential perfect, continuing the narrative chain of ritual actions performed by the priest.
• she.Ni ("[the] scarlet of", H8144) — construct noun, linking directly to to.La.'at ("worm", H8438B); together the phrase names the scarlet material by referencing the source (the worm) from which the dye derives.
• chai.Yah ("living", H2416A) — feminine adjective modifying tzi.Por ("bird", H6833), specifying that this particular bird must be alive, in contrast to the other bird mentioned later.
• she.chu.Tah ("throat cut", H7819A) — qal passive participle, feminine singular, describing the second bird as one whose throat has already been cut, distinguishing it from the living bird.
• hi.Zah ("he will spatter [it]", H5137A) — hiphil (causative) sequential perfect, the final action in the sequence: causing the mixture to be scattered onto the house.

What the text says

The verse is built as a chain of sequential perfect verbs (ve-la.Kach, "and he will take"; ve-ta.Val, "and he will dip"; ve-hi.Zah, "and he will spatter"), each introduced by the narrative ve ("and", H9001), which strings together the successive steps of the ritual as one continuous action rather than isolated commands. The four items to be taken — 'etz-ha-'e.rez ("wood of the cedar", H6086G + H0730), ha-'e.Zo ("the hyssop", H0231), she.Ni ha-to.La.'at ("scarlet of the worm", H8144 + H8438B), and ha-tzi.Por ha-chai.Yah ("the living bird", H6833 + H2416A) — are each marked by the object marker 'et (H0853), showing they are all direct objects of the same verb la.Kach.

The text distinguishes two birds by grammatical form alone: ha-tzi.Por ha-chai.Yah uses the adjective chai.Yah ("living") to describe the bird that will be dipped, while later ha-tzi.Por ha-she.chu.Tah uses the passive participle she.chu.Tah ("throat cut") to describe the bird already killed, whose blood is used for the dipping liquid. The phrase ba-ma.yim ha-chai.Yim ("in the living water", H4325G + H2416A) uses the same adjective root chai applied to water, denoting flowing or fresh water, paired with the blood as the dipping medium. The final verb, hi.Zah (hiphil of H5137A), is causative in form, indicating the priest causes the liquid to be scattered onto the house, an action repeated she.va' pe.'a.Mim ("seven times", H7651 + H6471).

Differences between versions

The LXX renders ba-ma.yim ha-chai.Yim ("in the living water") as ἐφ' ὕδατι ζῶντι ("upon living water"), preserving the same adjectival sense as the Hebrew. The Vulgate renders it as "in aquis viventibus" ("in living waters"), similarly matching the Hebrew adjective. The LXX and Vulgate both list the items taken in a different order than the Hebrew (placing the scarlet/κόκκινον before the hyssop/ὕσσωπον and hyssopum), whereas the Hebrew sequence is cedar wood, hyssop, scarlet, then the living bird.