Leviticus 6:20

Summary

The verse specifies the grain offering (minchah) that Aaron and his sons must present to Yehovah on the day of anointing: a tenth of an ephah of fine flour, offered continually, divided into two equal portions for morning and evening.

Key words

• korban ("present/offering", H7133A) — construct noun opening the sentence, marking the following names (Aaron, sons) as the source/owners of the offering.
• yakriyvu ("they will present", H7126H) — hiphil imperfect, 3rd person masculine plural; the causative stem marks the act of "bringing near" an offering, and the plural subject includes both Aaron and his sons.
• himmashach ("is anointed", H4886) — niphal infinitive construct; the passive/reflexive stem describes the anointing as something undergone rather than performed, without naming an agent.
• 'oto (object suffix "him", H0853+H9033) — third person masculine singular suffix attached to the infinitive, grammatically pointing to one individual (Aaron) as the one anointed, even though the preceding verb yakriyvu is plural and includes the sons.
• tamid ("continually", H8548) — a noun used adverbially, indicating the offering's perpetual or regular character rather than a one-time act.

What the text says

The sentence opens with the demonstrative zeh ("this", H2088) functioning as a pointer to the regulation that follows, structurally identical to the opening of adjacent priestly instructions in Leviticus. The construct chain korban Aharon u-vanav ("offering of Aaron and his sons") ties the offering to both the high priest and his sons as a collective group, and the relative clause introduced by 'asher ("which", H0834A) specifies that "they" (plural, via yakriyvu) will present it to Yehovah.

The temporal clause be-yom himmashach 'oto ("on the day he is anointed") uses a niphal infinitive with a singular object suffix, grammatically referring only to Aaron's anointing, even though the surrounding verbs treat Aaron and his sons together as offerers. This creates a grammatical asymmetry: the offering obligation is plural (Aaron and sons), but the anointing event named as the temporal marker is singular (Aaron alone). The rest of the verse specifies quantity ('asirit ha-'efah, "the tenth of the ephah", H6224+H0374) and material (solet, "fine flour", H5560), then divides the offering into two equal halves (machatsitah, "half of it", H4276) marked for boker ("morning", H1242) and 'erev ("evening", H6153).

Differences between versions

The Hebrew himmashach 'oto is a singular passive construction ("when he is anointed"), referring grammatically to Aaron alone. The Spanish RV1909 ("serán ungidos") and SBLIBRE ("sean ungidos") render this as plural ("when they are anointed"), extending the anointing to the sons as well, which the Hebrew grammatical form does not explicitly state. The LXX shifts person entirely, using a second-person singular subjunctive (χρίσῃς, "you anoint"), addressing an implied "you" rather than describing Aaron's anointing in the passive as the Hebrew does. The Vulgate nominalizes the clause as "in die unctionis suae" ("on the day of his anointing"), preserving the singular reference to Aaron found in the Hebrew suffix but without the verbal/passive construction of the source text.