Leviticus 16:12

Summary

Leviticus 16:12 describes the priest taking a censer full of coals from the altar that stands before Yehovah, together with two handfuls of finely ground fragrant incense, and carrying these items inward, past the curtain that separates the sanctuary spaces.

Key words

• la.Kach ("he will take", H3947) — qal sequential perfect, continuing the narrative chain begun in the preceding verses; marks the first action in the sequence.
• mach.tah ("censer", H4289) — feminine singular, governed by the construct me.lo' ("fullness of"), forming the phrase "the fullness of the censer" rather than simply "a full censer."
• cha.fe.Na ("hands", H2651) — masculine dual construct with the suffix -v ("his"), literally "the fullness of his two hands," a set idiom for a double handful.
• ke.To.ret sa.Mim ("incense of perfumes", H7004/H5561) — construct chain naming the specific compounded spice-incense, modified by the adjective da.Kah ("fine", H1851).
• pa.Ro.khet ("curtain", H6532) — feminine singular, object of the phrase mi.Beit la.Pa.ro.khet ("from inside to the curtain"), an idiom describing passage to the space behind the veil.

What the text says

The verse is built on two sequential-perfect verbs, la.Kach ("he will take") and he.Vi' ("he will bring"), each continuing a narrative chain rather than standing as independent commands; the action flows directly from what precedes. The Hebrew uses construct chains rather than adjectives to express quantity: me.lo'-ha.mach.tah ("the fullness of the censer") and me.lo' cha.fe.Nav ("the fullness of his hands") both employ the noun me.lo' ("fullness", H4393) in construct, a grammatical pattern that treats "fullness" as a measurable substance rather than describing the censer or hands as adjectivally "full."

The altar's location is specified with the compound preposition mi.lifnei YHWH ("from before Yehovah"), locating the coals spatially in relation to the divine name rather than merely naming the altar. The final clause, mi.Beit la.Pa.ro.khet ("from inside to the curtain"), combines two prepositions to express motion toward and behind the veil, an idiom that in Hebrew conveys direction without a separate verb of entering, unlike the following verse's more explicit language of entry into the compartment.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the construct phrase me.lo' cha.fe.Nav ("the fullness of his hands") with a verb, πλήσει τὰς χεῖρας ("he will fill the hands"), turning the Hebrew noun-construct into a finite verbal action. The Vulgate similarly shifts to a participial construction, hauriens manu ("scooping with the hand"), rather than preserving the "fullness" idiom. For the final clause, the Vulgate adds intrabit in sancta ("he will enter into the holy place"), a specification of destination not present in the Hebrew mi.Beit la.Pa.ro.khet, which names only the curtain, not the named "holy place."