Leviticus 16:28

Summary

The verse describes the purification procedure required for the person who burns the remains of the sacrificial animals: he must wash his clothes and bathe his body in water before he is permitted to re-enter the camp.

Key words

• so.Ref ("[one who] burns", H8313) — qal participle, masculine singular; functions as a substantive, "the one burning," identifying the agent of the action rather than a finite verb.
• yekhabbes ("he will wash", H3526H) — piel imperfect; the piel stem intensifies the action, referring to laundering/thoroughly washing garments, distinct from the simple qal used for body-washing.
• rachatz ("he will wash/bathe", H7364) — qal sequential perfect (vav-consecutive), continuing the narrative sequence begun by the imperfect yekhabbes; describes washing the body.
• besaro ("his body/flesh", H1320 + suffix) — construct noun with 3ms suffix, "his flesh," the direct object of rachatz, referring to the physical body as opposed to the clothing.
• yavo' ("he will come", H0935G) — qal imperfect, marking the final permitted action (entering the camp) after the washing sequence is completed.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built as a chain of verbs describing sequential actions performed by the same subject, introduced by the participle so.Ref ("the one burning them"), which nominalizes the agent rather than naming a specific person. The verb sequence moves from yekhabbes (piel imperfect, "he will wash [garments]") to rachatz (qal sequential perfect, "and he will wash [body]"), a common Biblical Hebrew construction where an initial imperfect is followed by a vav-consecutive perfect to continue the same time-frame and subject. This grammatical chaining presents the washing of garments and the washing of the body as two distinct but connected actions within one continuous procedure, using two different verbs (kabes, piel, for garments; rachatz, qal, for the body) rather than a single verb for both.

The temporal phrase 'acharei-khen ("after thus/after this") explicitly marks a sequence: only after both washings are completed does the subject yavo' ("come/enter") into ha.machaneh ("the camp"). The construct forms begadav ("his garments") and besaro ("his body") each carry the 3ms pronominal suffix, tying the objects of washing directly to the subject introduced by the participle.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the two Hebrew verbs yekhabbes and rachatz with πλυνεῖ ("he will wash [garments]") and λούσεται ("he will bathe [himself]"), preserving the distinction between garment-washing and body-washing. The Vulgate combines the object into one clause, "lavabit vestimenta sua et carnem aqua" ("he will wash his garments and flesh with water"), using a single verb lavabit for both actions rather than two separate verbs as in the Hebrew and LXX. The SBLIBRE Spanish translation similarly compresses the sequence into "lavar su ropa y bañarse," slightly less explicit than the Hebrew's two-stage sequential construction marked by 'acharei-khen.