Leviticus 4:8

Summary

Leviticus 4:8 specifies which fatty portions of the bull used as a sin offering (chattat, H2403H) must be removed. The verse names two overlapping categories of fat: what covers the entrails and whatever fat lies upon them, using two syntactically parallel constructions.

Key words

• yarim ("he will lift up", H7311A) — hiphil (causative) imperfect of the root meaning "to be high"; here it functions as the technical verb for "removing/setting aside" a portion, not a plain "take."
• chelev ("fat", H2459) — appears four times, twice in construct chains (kol-chelev par, "all the fat of the bull") and twice in absolute form with the definite article, marking specific fat portions already introduced.
• mekhasseh ("the one covering", H3680) — piel participle, masculine singular, functioning as a substantive adjective: "the fat that is covering," describing the fat's position over the entrails.
• qerev ("entrails", H7130H) — repeated twice, once after mekhasseh and once after asher, anchoring both descriptive clauses to the same body part.
• asher ("which", H0834A) — relative particle introducing the second clause, syntactically parallel to the participial clause built with mekhasseh.

What the text says

The verse opens with a direct object marker ('et, H0853) attached to a construct chain: kol-chelev par ha-chattat, "all the fat of the bull of the sin offering." This object is placed before the verb yarim ("he will lift up/remove," H7311A), a hiphil imperfect that signals the causative act of setting the fat apart from the rest of the animal. The pronominal suffix -nu ("it," H9033) attached to the preposition mimmenu ("from it," H4480A) refers back to the bull, clarifying the fat is separated from that specific animal.

After the verb, the text specifies the general command with two nearly identical object clauses. The first uses the participle ha-mekhasseh ("the one covering," H3680) to describe fat "covering" the entrails (qerev, H7130H). The second uses the relative particle asher ("which," H0834A) to describe fat "which is on" the entrails. Both clauses point to the same anatomical fat, but the grammar varies: one uses a participial (verbal-adjective) construction, the other a full relative clause. This grammatical doubling — participle vs. relative clause — cannot be reproduced in translation without flattening the two constructions into a single repeated phrase, as most versions do.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders yarim ("he will lift up," H7311A) with περιελεῖ ("he will remove/take away around"), and the Vulgate uses auferet ("he will take away") — both translate the causative sense of removal but lose the literal "lifting" imagery embedded in the Hebrew root. The Hebrew's two distinct grammatical constructions (participle mekhasseh vs. relative clause with asher) are rendered by the LXX and Vulgate with parallel but grammatically uniform phrases (κατακαλύπτον / τὸ ἐπὶ, and operit / quae... sunt), collapsing the syntactic variation present in the Hebrew.