Leviticus 6:15

Summary

The verse describes the priest lifting out a handful from the grain offering — fine flour, oil, and all the frankincense — and burning it on the altar as a soothing memorial portion for Yehovah. Two sequential hiphil verbs structure the action: taking and then burning.

Key words

• he.Rim ("he will lift up", H7311A) — hiphil sequential perfect, causative form indicating the priest actively removes/lifts the handful; continues the narrative sequence begun in earlier verses.
• kum.Tzo ("his handful", H7062) — construct noun with pronominal suffix "his," specifying the exact measure taken (a fist-full) belonging to the officiating priest.
• So.let ("fine flour of", H5560) — construct form, "flour of," linking directly to ha.min.Chah ("the grain offering", H4503G) as the substance being handled.
• hik.Tir ("he will make smoke", H6999A) — hiphil sequential perfect, the causative "make go up in smoke," the technical verb for burning an offering into smoke.
• 'az.ka.ra.Tah ("its memorial offering", H0234) — construct noun with feminine suffix "her" (referring back to ha.min.Chah), identifying this portion as the "memorial" representative part of the whole offering.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built on two sequential perfect verbs in the hiphil stem — he.Rim ("he will lift up", H7311A) and hik.Tir ("he will make smoke", H6999A) — both causative forms that continue a narrative chain begun with the vav-conjunctive (ve., H9001). This grammatical structure ties the action tightly to the preceding verses: first the priest lifts out a portion, then he causes that portion to go up in smoke. The object of the first verb is built through a series of construct chains: kum.Tzo ("his handful", H7062) governs So.let ("fine flour of", H5560), which in turn is bound to ha.min.Chah ("the grain offering", H4503G). The oil and frankincense are added via the preposition mi. ("some of", H9006) and the conjunction ve. ("and", H9002), marking them as component parts drawn from the same offering.

The phrase kol-ha.le.vo.Nah ("all the frankincense", H3605 + H3828) is further specified by the relative clause 'a.Sher 'al-ha.min.Chah ("which is on the grain offering", H0834A + H5921A + H4503G), clarifying that the frankincense in view is specifically that which rests upon the offering. The final phrase places 'az.ka.ra.Tah ("its memorial offering", H0234) in apposition to the smoke action, with the suffix -ah ("her", H9024) referring back to the grain offering itself — the portion burned represents or stands for the whole.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders kum.Tzo ("his handful", H7062) with the dative τῇ δρακί ("with the handful"), and adds the term κάρπωμα ("burnt offering/oblation") before ὀσμὴ εὐωδίας ("odor of sweetness"), a word not present as a separate lexical unit in the Hebrew construct chain at this point. The Vulgate identifies the subject explicitly as sacerdos ("the priest"), whereas the Hebrew leaves the subject implicit in the third-person verb form he.Rim ("he will lift up", H7311A). The Vulgate also renders 'az.ka.ra.Tah ("its memorial offering", H0234) as in monimentum ("into a memorial"), framing it as the purpose of the burning rather than as a noun in apposition as structured in the Hebrew.