Leviticus 4:25

Summary

The verse describes the priest's ritual handling of the blood of a chataT ("sin offering", H2403H): with his finger he applies some of it to the horns of the altar of burnt offering, and pours out the remainder at the base of that same altar.

Key words

• ve.la.Kach (from H3947G) — "and he will take" — narrative vav + sequential perfect, marking this as the next step in a fixed procedural sequence.
• cha.taT ("sin offering", H2403H) — feminine singular noun naming the specific offering whose blood is used.
• 'etz.ba.' + suffix O ("his finger", H0676 + H9023) — construct noun with pronominal suffix, specifying the instrument (the priest's own finger) used to apply the blood.
• kar.Not ("horns of", H7161A) — feminine plural construct, identifying the projections of the altar as the target of the blood application.
• yish.Pokh ("he will pour out", H8210G) — qal imperfect, denoting the pouring action, grammatically distinct in aspect from the preceding sequential perfects.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built as a chain of actions linked by the narrative vav attached to sequential perfect verbs: ve.la.Kach ("and he will take"), ve.na.Tan ("and he will put"). This construction presents the ritual as an ordered sequence of steps, each following from the last. The final verb, yish.Pokh ("he will pour out"), shifts to a plain imperfect form rather than continuing the sequential perfect chain, though it still functions within the same narrative sequence describing the disposal of the remaining blood.

The object of the first action is introduced with the partitive preposition mi. ("some of", H9006) attached to Dam ("blood of", H1818), indicating that only a portion of the blood is taken for the finger application, while the rest — marked by the direct object marker 'Et (H0853) before da.M...o ("its blood") — is poured out entirely at the base of the altar. Both altar references use construct chains: miz.Bach ha.'o.Lah ("altar of the burnt offering"), repeated identically for both the horn application and the base pouring, indicating the same altar receives both actions in this verse.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the first verb as ἐπιθήσει ("he will put/apply"), corresponding to the Hebrew's second verb na.Tan ("he will put"), rather than translating la.Kach ("he will take") as a separate action — the Greek compresses the taking-and-placing into one verb where the Hebrew has two sequential steps. The LXX also specifies τὸ πᾶν αἷμα ("all the blood") for the poured-out portion, making explicit what the Hebrew leaves as simply da.M...o ("its blood") with the object marker 'Et. The Vulgate's tinget...digitum ("he will dip his finger") frames the action as dipping rather than the Hebrew's la.Kach ("take") plus na.Tan ("put"), and uses reliquum ("the remainder") for the poured blood, aligning with the partitive sense of mi.Dam ("some of the blood") in the Hebrew.