Leviticus 4:15

Summary

Leviticus 4:15 describes a ritual: the elders of the congregation press their hands on the head of a bull before Yehovah, and the bull's throat is cut before Yehovah. The verse forms part of a purification-offering procedure using sequential verb forms that link it to preceding actions.

Key words

• sa.me.khu ("they will lean", H5564) — qal sequential perfect, plural; continues a narrative chain, indicating the elders' collective action of pressing hands.
• zik.nei ("elders of", H2205) — masculine plural construct; grammatically bound to "the congregation," identifying whose hands perform the act.
• yedei ("hands of", H3027) — dual construct form, marking a pair (two hands), bound to the pronominal suffix hem ("their").
• rosh ("head of", H7218) — construct form, linking to "the bull," specifying the exact location of the hand-pressing.
• sha.chat ("cut the throat of", H7819) — qal sequential perfect, third masculine singular; grammatically singular though the subject performing the slaughter is not explicitly named in this clause.

What the text says

The verse uses two sequential perfect verbs (sa.me.khu and sha.chat), a common construction in Hebrew ritual instruction that presents actions as a continuing series following prior commands. The first action, "leaning" or "pressing," is explicitly assigned to the zik.nei ha-'edah ("elders of the congregation", H2205/H5712) — a plural subject clearly stated in the text. Their hands (yedei-hem, dual + suffix) are placed 'al-rosh ("on the head of", H5921/H7218) the bull (ha-par, H6499).

The second verb, sha.chat ("he will cut the throat", H7819), is grammatically third-person masculine singular, but no singular subject is named in this clause — the elders were the last-named plural subject. This grammatical gap creates ambiguity in Hebrew as to who performs the slaughtering act, distinct from the explicitly plural hand-pressing.

Both actions are located spatially and cultically by the repeated phrase lifnei Yehovah ("before Yehovah", H6440/H3068), appearing twice — once after the hand-pressing, once after the slaughter — framing both acts as occurring in the divine presence.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew sha.chat (H7819) is third-person masculine singular ("he will slaughter"), with no explicit singular subject in this clause. The LXX renders this as σφάξουσιν ("they will slaughter"), a third-person plural, implicitly continuing the elders as subject. The Vulgate uses an ablative absolute, Immolatoque vitulo ("the bull having been slaughtered"), a passive construction that avoids specifying an agent altogether. The BSB and RV1909 translations follow this passive/impersonal pattern as well ("it shall be slaughtered" / "degollarán" — plural in Spanish, aligning with the LXX's plural reading).