Leviticus 15:15

Summary

The priest offers the two birds mentioned in the preceding verses: one as a chattat ("sin offering", H2403H) and the other as an olah ("burnt offering", H5930A). Through this act the priest performs kipper ("atonement", H3722A) on behalf of the man, before Yehovah, because of his zov ("discharge", H2101).

Key words

• 'a.Sah ("he will offer/do", H6213A) — qal sequential perfect, continuing the narrative chain begun in the prior verse; the same root elsewhere means simply "to do/make," here specialized to the ritual act of offering.
• chaTat ("sin offering", H2403H) — feminine singular noun designating the purpose-category of one of the two birds, not a separate animal but a function assigned to it.
• 'oLah ("burnt offering", H5930A) — feminine singular noun naming the second bird's function; paired with chattat the two together form a complementary offering-set.
• khiPer ("he will make atonement", H3722A) — piel (intensive) sequential perfect; the piel stem marks an intensive/causative action performed by the priest on behalf of another, distinct from a simple qal action.
• zoV ("discharge", H2101) — masculine singular noun in construct form ("discharge of"), linked by the suffix -o ("his") to the man whose condition triggered the whole procedure.

What the text says

The verse is built as two coordinated clauses joined by narrative vav ("and", H9001), both using sequential perfect verb forms that carry forward the ritual sequence from the preceding instructions. The first clause, ve-'aSah 'otam ha-kohen ("and the priest will offer them"), places the direct object 'otam ("them", referring back to the two birds already introduced) before specifying their individual roles: 'echad chattat ("one, a sin offering") and ve-ha-'echad 'olah ("and the one, a burnt offering"). Here 'echad ("one", H0259) functions almost as a distributive marker ("the one... the other...") rather than a strict numeral, assigning each bird its ritual designation without naming a new object each time.

The second clause centers on khiPer ("he will make atonement"), in the piel stem, followed by the preposition 'alav ("on/for him", H5921A + suffix H9033), indicating the beneficiary of the atoning action rather than its direct object — the priest acts on behalf of the man, not "atones him." The phrase li-fnei Yehovah ("before the face of Yehovah", H6440G) uses a construct noun for "face," positioning the act as occurring in Yehovah's presence rather than merely "for" Yehovah in an abstract sense. The clause closes with mi-zovo ("from his discharge"), using the preposition min ("from", H9006) to mark the discharge as the condition being addressed, with the pronominal suffix tying the noun back to the man himself.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders ve-khiPer 'alav with ἐξιλάσεται περὶ αὐτοῦ ("he will make propitiation concerning him"), using peri rather than a strict "on behalf of" construction, though the sense of benefiting a third party is preserved. The Vulgate adds an explanatory purpose clause not present in the Hebrew syntax, ut emundetur ("that he may be cleansed"), making explicit an outcome (cleansing) that the Hebrew expresses only through the noun zovo ("his discharge") as the source of the condition, without a separate verb of cleansing in this verse.