Leviticus 15:14

Summary

The verse describes a ritual action to be performed on the eighth day: a person is to take two turtledoves or two young pigeons, present himself before Yehovah at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting, and hand the birds over to the priest. The verse consists of three consecutive actions describing a procedure tied to a specific day count.

Key words

• yiqqach ("he will take", H3947G) — Qal imperfect, marking the first action of the sequence, grammatically open to future/ongoing nuance.
• toRim ("turtle-doves", H8449) — plural noun, paired with she.Tei ("two", H8147) in construct form ("two of turtledoves").
• beNei yoNah ("young ones of a dove", H1121H + H3123) — construct chain, literally "sons of a dove," an alternative bird offering to the turtledoves.
• va' ("he will come", H0935G) — Qal sequential perfect (vav + qatal), continuing the narrative sequence after the initial imperfect.
• netanam ("he will give them", H5414G + H9038) — sequential perfect with 3rd person masculine plural suffix ("them"), closing the sequence of actions.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence structure uses a verbal chain typical of legal/ritual prescriptive texts: it opens with yiqqach ("he will take", H3947G) in the imperfect, then shifts to two verbs joined by narrative vav — va' ("he will come", H0935G) and netanam ("he will give them", H5414G) — both in the sequential perfect form. This pattern (imperfect followed by vav-consecutive perfects) presents three actions as a linked procedural sequence: taking the birds, coming before Yehovah, and giving the birds to the priest.

The offering is specified through two construct phrases offering an alternative: she.Tei toRim ("two of turtledoves", H8147/H8449) or she.Nei beNei yoNah ("two of young ones of a dove", H8147/H1121H/H3123). Both use dual/cardinal "two" in construct state, governing the following noun. The phrase lifNei Yehovah ("before Yehovah", H6440G/H3068G) uses the construct noun peNei ("face/before", H6440G) governing the divine name, indicating the location of presentation is oriented toward Yehovah, specifically identified further as petach 'Ohel mo'Ed ("the entrance of the tent of meeting", H6607/H0168G/H4150I), itself a chain of construct nouns.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders beNei yoNah ("young ones of a dove", H1121H/H3123) as νοσσοὺς περιστερῶν ("young ones of doves," plural), where the Hebrew has the singular yoNah ("dove", H3123) in construct with the plural beNei ("sons/young ones of", H1121H). The Vulgate's duos pullos columbæ ("two young ones of a dove") preserves the Hebrew's singular "dove," matching the construct structure more closely than the LXX's plural.