Leviticus 16:25

Summary

The verse states that the fat of the chattat ("sin offering", H2403H) is to be burned/turned into smoke on the altar. It describes a single ritual action performed by an unspecified male subject (implied to be the officiant, likely the high priest per the surrounding context of Leviticus 16), directed toward the altar.

Key words

chelev ("fat of", H2459) — masculine singular noun in construct state, meaning it is grammatically bound to the following word and must be translated "fat of [the sin offering]" rather than as a standalone noun.

ha-chattat ("the sin offering", H2403H) — feminine singular noun with definite article ha (H9009), naming the specific sacrificial category whose fat is in view.

yaqtir ("he will make smoke", H6999A) — verb in the hiphil stem, imperfect aspect. The hiphil is causative: the subject does not merely burn something but causes it to go up in smoke/vapor. The imperfect aspect marks this as an ongoing, habitual, or future-oriented action rather than a single completed event.

ha-mizbecha(h) ("the altar" + directional, H4196 + H9011) — the noun mizbeach ("altar") takes the definite article and is suffixed with the directional he (H9011), which indicates motion toward the altar rather than static location. This suffix means the phrase functions like "altar-ward" or "to the altar," reinforcing the directional sense of the action.

What the text says

The Hebrew clause is built around the causative verb yaqtir (H6999A), whose hiphil stem indicates that the subject actively causes the fat to rise as smoke, distinguishing this from ordinary burning (which in Hebrew often uses different roots). The object of this action is introduced by the direct object marker 'et (H0853, untranslated) followed by chelev ha-chattat — literally "fat of the sin-offering" — a construct chain where chelev (H2459) is grammatically dependent on the definite noun chattat (H2403H), tying the fat specifically to this sacrificial category rather than to sacrifices in general.

The final word combines mizbeach (H4196) with the directional he (H9011), a suffix that in Biblical Hebrew indicates movement toward a location. This construction expresses the destination of the action — the smoke rises "toward" or "onto" the altar — without a separate preposition. The imperfect form of the verb leaves the temporal frame open: it can describe a standard ritual procedure repeated whenever the sin offering is presented, rather than a one-time historical event.