Leviticus 6:26

Summary

The verse specifies that the priest who performs the chatta't (sin/purification) offering is the one who eats its meat, and that this eating must take place in a sacred location — specifically the courtyard of the Tent of Meeting.

Key words

• ko.Hen ("priest", H3548) — masculine singular noun, the subject of the whole verse, identified further by the participle that follows.
• m.cha.Te' ("makes a sin offering", H2398) — Piel (intensive) participle from the root associated with "sin"; the participle form ("the one doing") functions like a relative clause, defining which priest is meant: specifically the one who performs this offering.
• yo.kha.Le.nah ("he will eat it", H0398) — Qal (simple, active) imperfect with 3rd person feminine singular suffix ("her/it"), referring back to the offering; the imperfect aspect marks an ongoing or generally applicable action, not a single past event.
• te.'a.Khel ("it will be eaten", H0398) — same root as yo.kha.Le.nah but in Niphal (passive) imperfect; the subject shifts from the priest (agent) to the offering itself (patient), removing the actor and emphasizing the required action.
• cha.Tzar ("courtyard of", H2691A) — construct-form noun, grammatically bound to 'Ohel ("tent of", H0168G), which itself is bound to mo.'Ed ("meeting", H4150I), forming the chain "courtyard of the tent of meeting."

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built in two halves, each anchored by a form of the verb 'akhal ("to eat", H0398) but in different verbal stems. The first half uses the Qal active imperfect yo.kha.Le.nah, with the priest as grammatical subject and the offering as object (marked by the object suffix -nah, "her/it"). The second half repeats the same verbal root but shifts to the Niphal passive, te.'a.Khel, so the offering itself becomes the grammatical subject and the priest disappears from the surface structure. This stem-shift allows the text to state first who performs the eating, then to state the location-requirement independently of the human actor — a structure not directly visible in English translations, which must supply "it" as subject either way.

The identity of "the priest" is narrowed by the participle m.cha.Te', a Piel form built on the same root as "sin" (chata, H2398). The participle functions attributively: "the priest, the one making-a-sin-offering," restricting the referent to the officiating priest of that specific ritual act, distinguishing him from priests in general.

The final clause places the eating spatially through a construct chain: cha.Tzar ("courtyard of") + 'Ohel ("tent of") + mo.'Ed ("meeting"), each noun bound tightly to the next, yielding "the courtyard of the tent of meeting" as a single compound location.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders m.cha.Te' with ἀναφέρων ("the one offering up/bringing"), a general offering-verb, where the Hebrew participle is built on the root for "sin" and denotes specifically "the one performing the sin-offering." The Vulgate's qui offert ("who offers") similarly generalizes the action without reflecting the sin-related root visible in the Hebrew form.