Leviticus 22:24

Summary

The verse lists four physical conditions — squashed, crushed, torn, or cut — that disqualify an animal from being brought as an offering to Yehovah. It closes with a second prohibition: such practices (or such offerings) are not to be carried out anywhere in the land.

Key words

• ma'Ukh ("squashed", H4600) — qal passive participle, masculine singular, describing a condition inflicted on the animal rather than an action it performs.
• khaTut ("crushed", H3807) — same participial form, joined to the previous word by the conjunction ve ("and", H9002), building a chain of descriptive terms.
• naTuk ("torn", H5423) — qal passive participle continuing the list; the passive form marks the animal as the recipient of damage, not the agent.
• kharUt ("cut", H3772G) — final participle in the series, completing the fourfold description before the verb of the main clause appears.
• takRivu ("you will present", H7126H) — hiphil (causative) imperfect, second person masculine plural; the causative stem conveys "cause to draw near," i.e., "bring forward as an offering."

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence opens with four qal passive participles — ma'Ukh, khaTut, naTuk, kharUt — strung together by the conjunction ve ("and", H9002). All four share identical morphology: masculine singular, passive voice, describing a state resulting from an action done to something rather than an action performed by it. No noun for "animal" or "testicles" appears explicitly in this verse; the participles function adjectivally, modifying an understood referent carried over from the surrounding context of Leviticus 22.

The main verb, takRivu ("you will present", H7126H), is hiphil imperfect, second-person masculine plural. The hiphil stem is causative, built on the root meaning "to draw near" (H7126), so the verbal sense is "cause [something] to draw near" — i.e., "bring forward as an offering to Yehovah." The imperfect aspect marks this as an ongoing or future-oriented instruction rather than a single past event. The prohibition is doubled: first lo' takRivu la-YHWH ("you shall not present to Yehovah"), then a second clause, u-ve-'artzeKhem lo' ta'aSu ("and in your land you shall not do"), using the qal imperfect ta'aSu ("you will do", H6213A) with the possessive noun 'artzeKhem ("your land", H0776G + H9026). The repetition of lo' ("not", H3808) before each verb reinforces two separate but related restrictions — one concerning presentation to Yehovah, one concerning practice within the land generally.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew participles do not name the body part affected; the qualifying noun is left to context. The LXX supplies specific vocabulary — θλαδίαν and ἐκτομίαν, terms tied to testicles — making the anatomical referent explicit in the Greek lexical choices. The Vulgate does the same, adding "testiculis" ("testicles") directly into the Latin text. The BSB and SBLIBRE translations follow this interpretive tradition by inserting "testicles" explicitly, whereas the underlying Hebrew wording states only the four conditions (squashed, crushed, torn, cut) without naming the organ.