Leviticus 3:5

Summary

The verse describes the sons of Aaron burning portions of the peace offering on the altar, placed on top of the burnt offering that lies on the wood over the fire. The result is called a fire offering producing a soothing odor for Yehovah.

Key words

• hik.Ti.ru ("they will make smoke", H6999A) — hiphil (causative) verb in sequential perfect, continuing the narrative chain begun in earlier verses; the causative stem indicates the sons of Aaron cause the offering to go up in smoke, rather than simply burning it.
• miz.Be.cha ("altar", H4196) — noun with directional he suffix (-ah), giving it the sense "toward the altar" or "to the altar," marking the destination of the action.
• 'o.Lah ("burnt offering", H5930A) — feminine singular noun with definite article, referring to a distinct category of offering already present on the altar, upon which the current offering is placed.
• 'a.Sher ("which", H0834A) — relative particle used twice in the verse, creating a chain of spatial clauses: the burnt offering is "which is on" the wood, and the wood is "which is on" the fire.
• ni.Cho.ach ("soothing", H5207) — noun modifying rei.ach ("odor", H7381) in construct chain, together forming the fixed expression describing the effect of the offering.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built around one main verb, hik.Ti.ru, with the subject ve.nei-'a.ha.Ron ("the sons of Aaron", H1121A + H0175) placed after the verb-object sequence, following typical Biblical Hebrew verb-subject-object word order in narrative sequences. The object marker 'oto ("it", H0853 + H9033) refers back to portions of the offering discussed in the preceding verses, not restated here.

The spatial description that follows is layered through three uses of the preposition 'al ("on", H5921A) combined with relative clauses introduced by 'a.Sher: the offering is placed "on" ('al) the burnt offering, which is itself "on" the wood, which is "on" the fire. This creates a nested structure describing the physical stacking of elements on the altar, a level of syntactic layering not always preserved in translation.

The final phrase, 'i.Sheh rei.ach ni.Cho.ach la-Yehovah ("a fire offering of an odor of soothing to Yehovah"), consists of two chained construct forms ('i.Sheh + rei.ach, and rei.ach + ni.Cho.ach), producing a compact technical expression for the sensory/ritual effect attributed to the offering.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the object as αὐτὰ ("them," plural), where the Hebrew 'oto ("it") is singular, suggesting the LXX may be referring to multiple portions rather than a single one. The LXX also adds οἱ ἱερεῖς ("the priests") as an appositive to "the sons of Aaron," a specification not present in the Hebrew. Additionally, the LXX repeats ἐπὶ τοῦ θυσιαστηρίου ("upon the altar") at the end of the spatial chain, an element not found in the Hebrew's structure, which ends the spatial sequence with ha-'Esh ("the fire", H0784).