Leviticus 2:16

Summary

The verse closes the section on the grain offering (minha) prepared with oil, describing how the priest burns a portion of it as a "memorial" on the altar. The Hebrew specifies exactly which parts are burned: some of the crushed groats, some of the oil, and all of the frankincense, classified as a fire offering to Yehovah.

Key words

• hikTir ("he will make smoke", H6999A) — Hiphil (causative) verb: the priest does not merely burn but "causes to go up in smoke," continuing the narrative sequence begun in earlier verses.
• 'azkaraTah ("its memorial offering", H0234) — construct noun with 3rd person feminine suffix, referring back to the minha (grain offering) mentioned earlier in the chapter; only a designated portion, not the whole offering, is burned.
• girSah ("its groats", H1643) — construct noun with feminine suffix, denoting the crushed or coarse grain component of the offering, introduced by the partitive preposition mi ("some of").
• 'iSheh ("a fire offering", H0801) — noun classifying the entire act just described; it labels the burned portion as belonging to this offering-category dedicated to Yehovah.
• laYehovah ("to Yehovah", H3068G) — prepositional phrase marking the recipient/dedicatee of the 'isheh.

What the text says

The clause opens with the narrative ve-hikTir ("and he will make smoke"), keeping the sequential verbal chain that has run through the preceding verses on the grain offering. The subject, hakohen ("the priest", H3548), performs the action on a direct object marked by 'et: 'azkaraTah, "its memorial [portion]," a term built on the root for "remembrance" and grammatically tied by the feminine suffix -ah to the offering discussed earlier in the chapter. Three partitive phrases specify the material burned: mi-girsah ("some of its groats"), u-mi-shamnah ("and some of its oil"), and 'al kol-levonatah ("together with all its frankincense"). The repeated feminine suffix -ah across girsah, shamnah, and levonatah keeps all these elements grammatically anchored to the single antecedent offering, showing that groats, oil, and frankincense are all components of the same minha. The final phrase, 'isheh laYehovah, does not add a new action but classifies the whole burnt portion as an 'isheh, a fire offering directed to Yehovah.

Differences between versions

The LXX (Swete) renders the material list with more repetition than the Hebrew, mentioning τὸν λίβανον ("the frankincense") twice in connection with τῶν χίδρων ("the groats") and σὺν τῷ ἐλαίῳ ("with the oil"), where the Hebrew names groats, oil, and frankincense each once. The LXX also translates 'isheh ("fire offering", H0801) as κάρπωμα, a term emphasizing "acceptable offering" rather than the fire-related sense visible in the Hebrew root. The Vulgate (Clementine) follows the Hebrew's threefold structure closely — farris fracti ("of crushed grain"), olei ("of oil"), totum thus ("all the frankincense") — without the LXX's repeated phrasing.