Leviticus 14:53

Summary

The verse closes a purification ritual by describing the release of a living bird outside the city, over open country, followed by an act of atonement over a house and the resulting state of purity. Three consecutive verbs describe the sequence: releasing, atoning, and becoming pure.

Key words

• shi.Lach ("he will let go", H7971H) — piel sequential perfect; the intensive stem marks a deliberate, completed act of release within the narrative chain.
• tzi.Por ha.chai.Yah ("bird" H6833 + "living" H2416A) — the noun with attached adjective, both definite, specifies "the living bird" as distinct from the bird slaughtered earlier in the rite.
• mi.Chutz la.'Ir ("from outside" H2351 construct + "of the city" H5892B) — construct chain meaning "from [the] outside of the city," locating the release beyond urban space.
• khi.Per ("he will make atonement", H3722A) — piel sequential perfect, same intensive pattern as shi.Lach, denoting the covering/atoning action performed over the house.
• ta.Her ("it will be pure", H2891) — qal sequential perfect, a simple-stem verb marking the resulting state, contrasting with the two piel verbs that precede it.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence chains three verbs with the narrative/sequential vav (ve-), each in the perfect form but functioning to continue a sequence of actions rather than mark past time: shi.Lach ("he will let go"), khi.Per ("he will make atonement"), and ta.Her ("it will be pure"). This creates a tight cause-and-effect structure: release of the bird leads to atonement, which leads to purity. The first two verbs are in the piel stem, an intensive pattern used elsewhere in the passage for ritual actions performed by the priest, while the final verb ta.Her shifts to the simple qal stem, marking a change of state rather than an action performed by an agent — the house itself "becomes pure" rather than being purified by someone.

The spatial phrase 'el mi.Chutz la.'Ir 'el pe.Nei ha.sa.Deh ("to outside of the city, to the surface of the field") stacks two prepositional constructs to describe the bird's destination with precision: first beyond the city limits, then specifically onto open field terrain (pe.Nei, "surface of," H6440J, in construct with sa.Deh, "field," H7704G).

Differences between versions

The LXX renders tzi.Por ha.chai.Yah ("the living bird") as τὸ ὀρνίθιον τὸ ζῶν ("the little bird, the living one"), using a diminutive form absent in the Hebrew noun. The Vulgate renders the bird as passerem ("sparrow"), a more specific species term not present in the Hebrew tzi.Por ("bird"), which is a general term. The Vulgate also renders khi.Per ("he will make atonement") as orabit ("he will pray"), differing from the LXX's ἐξιλάσεται ("he will propitiate/atone"), which more closely tracks the Hebrew's atonement vocabulary.