Leviticus 2:6

Summary

The verse instructs that the offering be broken into crumbs and have oil poured over it, and closes with a declarative clause identifying it as a minchah ("grain offering", H4503G). It continues the ritual sequence for preparing this type of offering to be presented.

Key words

• pa.Tot ("you will crumble", H6626) — infinitive absolute in Qal, a grammatical form that intensifies or emphasizes the verbal action rather than adding a new subject or tense.
• pi.Tim ("crumbs", H6595A) — masculine plural noun, describing the resulting pieces after the crumbling action, functioning as an adverbial complement of manner.
• ya.tzak.Ta ("you will pour", H3332G) — Qal sequential perfect, second person masculine singular, linked by the narrative vav (H9001) to the previous verb, showing continuation of a single procedural sequence.
• min.Chah ("[is] a grain offering", H4503G) — feminine singular noun, used here without a verb, forming a nominal (verbless) identifying clause.
• hi' ("it/she", H1931) — personal pronoun, feminine singular, serving as the grammatical subject of the nominal clause that names the offering.

What the text says

The verse opens with the infinitive absolute pa.Tot ("you will crumble", H6626) followed by the direct object marker 'o.Ta (H0853) with the third-person feminine suffix -ah (H9034, "it/her"), referring back to the offering described in the preceding verses. This construction places grammatical emphasis on the act of crumbling itself, with pi.Tim ("crumbs", H6595A) specifying the result — a plural noun functioning almost adverbially to describe how the object is to be broken.

The clause is joined by the narrative vav (H9001) to ya.tzak.Ta ("you will pour", H3332G), a sequential perfect verb form that carries forward the same second-person addressee and continues the procedural chain: after crumbling, the same person pours sha.men ("oil", H8081) over it, marked by the preposition 'al ("on", H5921A) with the same feminine suffix referring to the crumbled substance.

The final two words, min.chah hi' ("it is a grain offering"), form a short nominal clause without a verb — a common Biblical Hebrew construction for identification or classification, where the pronoun hi' (H1931) functions as the grammatical subject linking back to the feminine noun minchah (H4503G). This structure asserts the offering's classification without narrative action, closing the description with a stative identification rather than a further instruction.

Differences between versions

The Vulgate (VULCLEM) renders only the crumbling and pouring instructions ("divides eam minutatim, et fundes super eam oleum") and does not include a Latin equivalent for the closing nominal clause minchah hi' ("it is a grain offering") found in the Hebrew and reflected in the LXX's θυσία ἐστὶν ("it is a sacrifice/offering"). The LXX also adds the word Τυρίῳ after θυσία ἐστίν, a term with no equivalent in the Hebrew clause minchah hi'.