Leviticus 16:14

Summary

The verse describes a two-part blood application: the officiant takes blood from the bull and sprinkles it once with his finger on the eastern face of the kapporet ("atonement cover"), then sprinkles it a further seven times before the kapporet itself.

Key words

• la.Kach ("he will take", H3947G) — qal sequential perfect; continues the narrative chain of ritual actions started earlier in the chapter.
• hi.Zah ("he will spatter [it]", H5137A) — hiphil (causative) sequential perfect; the causative stem indicates the agent actively causes the blood to spatter, not that it spatters on its own.
• ka.Po.ret ("atonement cover", H3727) — feminine singular noun, appearing twice, naming the object toward and before which the blood is applied.
• ya.Zeh ("he will spatter", H5137A) — hiphil imperfect, same causative root as hi.Zah but in the imperfect form, marking the second, repeated action (seven times) as distinct in aspect from the first single act.
• pe.'a.Mim ("times", H6471) — masculine plural noun paired with sheva' ("seven", H7651), quantifying the second sprinkling.

What the text says

The verse contains two clauses built on the same causative root (H5137A) but in different verbal forms. The first clause uses ve-hizzah (sequential perfect, "and he will spatter"), describing a single action: blood taken (la.Kach, H3947G) "from the blood of the bull" (mi-dam ha-par) is spattered "with his finger" (be-'etzba'o, construct + suffix "his") "on the face of the atonement cover" ('al-pnei ha-kapporet), oriented "eastward" (kedmah, with directional -heh). The second clause switches to the imperfect yazzeh ("he will spatter"), introducing a distinct, repeated action: seven spatterings (sheva' pe'amim) "before the atonement cover" (li-fnei ha-kapporet), again "from the blood" (min-ha-dam) and "with his finger" (be-'etzba'o).

The grammar marks a spatial distinction through two constructions built on pnei ("face of", H6440G): 'al-pnei ha-kapporet ("on the face of the cover") for the first single application, and li-fnei ha-kapporet ("before the cover") for the second sevenfold application. The repetition of be-'etzba'o ("with his finger") in both clauses ties the two actions together as performed by the same hand, while the shift in verbal aspect (perfect vs. imperfect) and in preposition ('al vs. li-) differentiates the single eastward-facing spattering from the sevenfold spattering positioned before the object.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders ha-par ("the bull", H6499) as τοῦ μόσχου ("the calf/young bull"), a lexical variation from the Hebrew term. The LXX also collapses the spatial distinction of the Hebrew ('al-pnei vs. li-fnei) into ἐπὶ τὸ ἱλαστήριον ("upon the mercy seat") and κατὰ τοῦ ἱλαστηρίου ("against/before the mercy seat"), using two different prepositions (ἐπὶ, κατὰ) that parallel but do not exactly reproduce the Hebrew's 'al/li- contrast. The Vulgate's "contra propitiatorium ad orientem" ("against the propitiatory, toward the east") places the directional phrase "ad orientem" at the end, differing in word order from the Hebrew, where kedmah ("eastward", H6924B) immediately follows the first sprinkling clause before the second clause begins.