Leviticus 16:11

Summary

The verse describes Aaron performing three consecutive ritual actions with a bull designated as his personal chattat ("sin offering", H2403H): presenting it, making atonement for himself and his household, and slaughtering it. The phrase identifying the bull as "which is his" appears twice, framing the sequence.

Key words

• hik.Riv ("he will present", H7126H) — hiphil (causative) verb in sequential perfect, the first of three chained actions continuing Aaron's ritual sequence.
• cha.taT ("sin offering", H2403H) — feminine singular noun modifying par ("bull", H6499) in construct, naming the category of offering.
• 'a.Sher-lo ("which is for himself", H0834A + H9005 + H9033) — relative particle plus preposition with pronominal suffix, marking the bull as Aaron's own designated animal; this exact phrase recurs at the end of the verse.
• khi.Per ("he will make atonement", H3722A) — piel (intensive) verb in sequential perfect, the second chained action, taking ba'ad ("for", H1157) constructions with suffixes for "himself" and "his household."
• sha.Chat ("he will cut the throat of", H7819A) — qal verb in sequential perfect, the third and final chained action, again governing par ha-chattat asher lo.

What the text says

The Hebrew presents three verbs in sequential perfect form — hik.Riv, khi.Per, sha.Chat — each introduced by the narrative ve. ("and", H9001), forming a chain of consecutive actions attributed to Aaron: presenting the bull, making atonement, then slaughtering it. This grammatical chaining does not by itself specify causal or logical relationships between the actions; it simply marks them as sequential narrative events in the ritual instruction.

A notable structural feature is the repetition of the full phrase par ha-chattat asher lo ("the bull of the sin offering which is his") at both the beginning and the end of the verse, bracketing the intervening atonement clause (khi.Per ba'ado u-ve'ad beito, "he will make atonement for himself and for his household"). This repetition emphasizes the bull's identity as Aaron's own offering before and after the atonement action is named, though the slaughtering itself is described only after atonement is mentioned.

Differences between versions

The LXX adds the word μόνον ("only") after specifying the offering is for Aaron "and his household," a qualifier not present in the Hebrew text's par ha-chattat asher lo. The Vulgate condenses the sequence, using "rogans" ("praying/entreating") for khi.Per, and does not repeat the identifying phrase about the bull a second time before "immolabit eum" ("he will sacrifice it"), unlike the Hebrew's twofold repetition. The BSB restructures the three sequential Hebrew verbs into subordinate temporal clauses ("When Aaron presents... and makes atonement...") with slaughtering as the main clause, differing from the Hebrew's three coordinate, chained actions.