Leviticus 6:17

Summary

The verse specifies that a portion belonging to the priests must not be baked with leaven, and that this portion, given from the fire offerings, holds a status of extreme holiness equivalent to the sin offering and the guilt offering.

Key words

• te'aPeh ("it will be baked", H0644) — niphal imperfect, passive/reflexive form indicating an action performed upon the substance without naming an agent; the imperfect aspect marks a standing prohibition rather than a single past event.
• chaMetz ("leaven", H2557A) — masculine singular adjective describing the forbidden state of the dough.
• naTati ("I have given", H5414G) — qal perfect, first person; marks a completed, settled act of assignment, contrasting with the ongoing prohibition expressed by the niphal imperfect verb earlier in the verse.
• Kodesh qadaShim ("holy thing of holy things", H6944G + H6944G) — construct chain doubling the same root, an intensifying superlative construction meaning the highest degree of that category.
• chaTat ("sin offering", H2403H) and 'aSham ("guilt offering", H0817) — both nouns introduced by the preposition-plus-article form ka/kha ("like the", H9004), setting up an explicit comparison of holiness status.

What the text says

The verse opens with a negated niphal verb, lo' te'aPeh ("it will not be baked"), which grammatically removes the agent from view — the text states what must not happen to the substance rather than who must avoid doing it. The adjective chaMetz ("leaven") specifies the forbidden condition: the baked item must not exist in a leavened state.

The middle clause shifts from this passive, imperfect-tense prohibition to a qal perfect verb, naTati ("I have given", H5414G), spoken in the first person. This shift in verbal aspect marks a transition from ongoing regulation to a completed, authoritative act of assignment: the portion (chelKam, "their share") was already given "from my fire offerings" (me'iShai), using the possessive suffix "my" attached to 'iShai (H0801).

The final clause uses a doubled-root construct chain, Kodesh qadaShim ("holy thing of holy things"), a superlative construction in Biblical Hebrew that intensifies the noun by repeating it in plural construct form. The pronoun hi' ("it", H1931, feminine) refers back to the portion just described. The comparison introduced by the paired prepositions ka- and kha- ("like the...and like the...") places this portion on the same level of holiness as the chaTat ("sin offering") and the 'aSham ("guilt offering"), both named nouns without further modification.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders me'iShai ("from my fire offerings") as ἀπὸ τῶν καρπωμάτων Κυρίου ("from the fruits/offerings of the Lord"), shifting the first-person possessive suffix "my" into a third-person genitive "of the Lord." The Vulgate paraphrases the giving-clause differently, stating "quia pars ejus in Domini offertur incensum" ("because its portion is offered as incense to the Lord"), which reframes the Hebrew's completed act of assignment (naTati, "I have given") as an ongoing offering action, differing from the Hebrew's perfect-tense retrospective statement.