Leviticus 17:9

Summary

Leviticus 17:9 states the consequence for failing to bring a sacrificial offering to the entrance of the Tent of Meeting: the person who does not do so "to offer it to Yehovah" will be cut off from his people. The verse forms the concluding clause of a legal sequence establishing that offerings must be sacrificed at this specific location.

Key words

• yevi'Ennu ("he will bring it", H0935P) — hiphil (causative) imperfect, meaning literally "cause to enter/bring in"; the causative stem underscores that the subject is responsible for actively transporting the offering.
• la'asot ("to offer/to do", H6213I) — qal infinitive construct, expressing purpose ("in order to do"); paired with the direct object marker 'oto ("it", H0853), it specifies the object being brought is what will be "done" (i.e., offered).
• nikhrat ("he will be cut off", H3772I) — niphal (passive) sequential perfect; the passive voice removes the agent of the cutting-off, and the sequential perfect (vav-consecutive) links this clause as the narrative/legal consequence following the preceding condition.
• ha'ish hahu' ("that man", H0376G + H1931) — noun with demonstrative pronoun, singling out the specific individual described in the preceding clause as the one subject to the penalty.
• me'ammav ("from his kinspeople", H5971B) — masculine plural construct noun with pronominal suffix; the plural form of 'am ("people/kinspeople") with the possessive suffix indicates separation from his own group.

What the text says

The Hebrew clause structure moves from a negated condition to a passive consequence. The verb yevi'ennu carries a suffixed pronoun ("it") referring back to an offering mentioned in a prior verse, and the infinitive la'asot 'oto ("to offer it") restates the purpose of bringing it — offering "to Yehovah" (la-Yehovah). The vav prefixed to nikhrat functions as a narrative/sequential vav, tying the consequence directly to the unfulfilled condition: failure to bring the offering results in being nikhrat, a niphal passive form that does not specify who performs the cutting-off, only that it happens to the subject.

The phrase me'ammav ("from his kinspeople") uses the plural construct of 'am with a third-person singular suffix, which the various versions render as singular ("his people") despite the underlying plural noun form in the Hebrew text as segmented here.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders nikhrat ("he will be cut off") with ἐξολεθρευθήσεται ("he will be utterly destroyed/rooted out"), a more intensified passive verb than a literal "cutting off." The Vulgate uses interibit ("he will perish"), which shifts the image from removal/severance to death, differing from both the Hebrew passive nikhrat and the LXX's destruction terminology. The Hebrew me'ammav (plural construct + suffix) is rendered as singular "from his people" (Vulgate: de populo suo; LXX: ἐκ τοῦ λαοῦ αὐτοῦ) in all provided versions, showing convergence in translating the plural construct as a singular collective noun.