Leviticus 16:5

Summary

Leviticus 16:5 specifies the animals that Aaron must take from the Israelite community for the Day of Atonement ritual: two male goats designated for a sin offering, and one ram designated for a burnt offering. The verse follows a construct-chain structure typical of Hebrew ritual prescriptions.

Key words

• 'edat ("congregation of", H5712) — feminine singular construct; begins a double construct chain with the following word, meaning it cannot stand alone but must be read together with "sons of Israel."
• yiqqach ("he will take", H3947G) — qal imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular; expresses a future/ongoing action, here functioning as a prescriptive instruction (what Aaron is to do).
• se'irei ("male goats of", H8163B) — masculine plural construct; forms part of the phrase shenei se'irei 'izzim, a triple chain ("two of male-goats of goats").
• chattat ("sin offering", H2403H) — feminine singular noun, governed by the preposition le ("to/for"), marking the purpose of the first animal.
• 'olah ("burnt offering", H5930A) — feminine singular noun, also governed by le, marking the purpose of the second animal.

What the text says

The verse opens with a prepositional phrase, u-me'et 'adat benei Yisra'el ("and from the congregation of the sons of Israel"), which is fronted before the verb yiqqach ("he will take"). This word order places emphasis on the source of the animals — the community — before naming the action and the animals themselves. The chain 'adat benei Yisra'el stacks two constructs: "congregation of" is bound to "sons of," which is itself bound to "Israel," producing a single dense phrase meaning "the congregation of the sons of Israel."

The object of the verb is introduced by another construct chain: shenei se'irei 'izzim ("two of male-goats of goats"), where the numeral shenei ("two of", H8147) is itself in construct with se'irei, which is in construct with 'izzim. This triple stacking is grammatically dense in Hebrew and results in a phrase that some translations simplify to "two male goats," though the underlying text explicitly ties the count, the animal type, and its species together in one chain. Each animal's ritual purpose is marked by the preposition le ("to/for"): le-chattat ("for a sin offering") and le-'olah ("for a burnt offering"), a pattern that syntactically parallels the two animals' distinct functions.

Differences between versions

The Septuagint renders u-me'et ("and from") with παρὰ ("from beside/from"), a near-equivalent shift in preposition. The Vulgate adds universa ("entire/whole") to "multitude," a qualifier not present in the Hebrew 'edat. The LXX's δύο χιμάρους ἐξ αἰγῶν ("two young goats from goats") mirrors the Hebrew's layered construct phrase, while the Vulgate simplifies it to duos hircos ("two he-goats"), collapsing the triple chain into a single noun phrase.