Leviticus 23:12

Summary

The verse instructs that on the day the sheaf offering is waved, a specific additional offering must be made: an unblemished male lamb, one year old, presented as a burnt offering to Yehovah. The Hebrew ties this offering directly to the timing of the sheaf-waving ceremony.

Key words

• 'a.si.Tem ("you will offer", H6213I) — qal sequential perfect, second person masculine plural; continues the narrative sequence of commands, indicating an action the community is to perform.
• ha.nif.Khem ("wave" + "you", H5130B + H9046) — hiphil infinitive with pronominal suffix; the hiphil stem denotes causative action ("causing to wave/causing to move"), and the suffix specifies "your waving," anchoring the timing clause to the addressees.
• 'O.mer ("sheaf", H6016A) — masculine singular noun with the definite article ha ("the"), marking this as a specific, previously identified sheaf rather than a generic one.
• Ke.ves ta.Mim ("a male lamb" + "unblemished", H3532 + H8549G) — noun followed by adjective in agreement, both masculine singular, specifying the required physical condition of the animal.
• ben-she.na.T-o ("a son of its year", H1121L + H8141 + H9023) — construct chain with pronominal suffix, an idiomatic way of expressing age ("one year old" / "in its first year").

What the text says

The verse opens with a narrative va ("and", H9001) attached to the sequential perfect 'a.si.Tem, linking this instruction to what precedes it in the chapter's sequence of commands. The temporal clause be-yom hanifkhem 'et-ha'omer ("on the day of your waving the sheaf") uses the construct relationship between yom ("day", H3117G) and the infinitive hanif- ("wave", H5130B) to fix the timing precisely: the offering described afterward must coincide with the sheaf-waving rite, not merely follow it generally.

The object of the required offering is described through a chain of nouns and modifiers: keves ("a male lamb", H3532) is qualified by tamim ("unblemished", H8549G) and further specified by the construct phrase ben-shenato ("son of its year", H1121L + H8141 + H9023), an idiom expressing that the animal is one year old. The purpose of the offering is marked by two parallel prepositional phrases: le-'olah ("to/as a burnt offering", H5930A) and la-Yehovah ("to Yehovah", H3068G), both using the preposition le (H9005) to indicate the category and recipient of the offering.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders keves ("male lamb", H3532) with πρόβατον, a broader term for "sheep" rather than specifically "male lamb," while the Vulgate uses agnus, matching the more specific "lamb" sense. The Vulgate also renders the sequential action with cædetur ("shall be slain/cut"), introducing a verb of slaughter not explicitly present in the Hebrew verb 'a.si.Tem ("you will offer/do", H6213I), which is more generic than a specific slaughtering term.