Leviticus 4:12

Summary

The verse instructs that the entire bull (what remains after the offering procedure) be taken outside the camp to a ceremonially clean place, the ash-dump, and burned there on a wood fire. The final clause repeats that the burning takes place specifically at the ash-dump.

Key words

• ho.Tzi' ("he will bring out", H3318H) — hiphil causative, sequential perfect; someone causes the bull to go out, continuing the narrative chain from the preceding verses.
• ma.cha.Neh ("camp", H4264) — feminine singular noun; the location from which the bull is removed, marked by mi. ("from", H9006) + Chutz ("[the] outside", H2351).
• ta.hOr ("pure", H2889) — adjective qualifying ma.Kom ("a place", H4725); specifies the destination as ritually clean, distinguishing it from the camp itself.
• She.fekh ("[the] pouring out of", H8211) — masculine singular construct, appearing twice (lines 16 and 28), linking to De.shen ("fatty ash", H1880) to form "the pouring-out-place of the ash," i.e., the ash-dump.
• yi.sa.Ref ("it will be burned", H8313) — niphal (passive) imperfect, contrasting with the earlier sa.Raf ("he will burn", H8313) in qal active voice; the same root shifts from active to passive across the verse.

What the text says

The verse is built as a chain of sequential perfect verbs (ve-hotzi, "and he will bring out"; ve-saraf, "and he will burn") that continue a narrative sequence, describing successive actions: removal, then burning. The object is marked twice by the untranslated direct-object particle 'et (H0853), first attached to kol-ha-por ("all the bull") and later as a suffixed pronoun oto ("it," H0853+H9033) referring back to the bull.

The phrase she.fekh ha.de.shen ("the pouring-out of the ash") functions as a construct chain naming a specific location — literally "the pouring-place of the fatty ash" — used twice in the verse (lines 16 and 28-30), framing the destination first as the goal of the journey ('el, "to," H0413) and then as the site of the burning ('al, "at," H5921A).

The final verb yi.sa.Ref shifts from the active qal form sa.Raf used earlier in the verse to the niphal (passive) form. Both share the root H8313 ("to burn"), but the grammatical voice changes: the earlier clause presents the priest as the active agent burning the bull, while the closing clause states the action as a passive/resultative fact — "it will be burned" — without repeating the subject.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the verb as plural (ἐξοίσουσιν, "they will bring out"; κατακαύσουσιν, "they will burn"), where the Hebrew uses singular verb forms (ho.Tzi', sa.Raf). The Vulgate's efferet and incendet match the Hebrew singular. The LXX also renders she.fekh ha.de.shen with a relative clause (οὗ ἐκχεοῦσιν τὴν σποδιάν, "where they pour out the ash") rather than the construct-noun phrase found in the Hebrew.