Leviticus 6:9

Summary

The verse opens Yehovah's instruction to Moses to command Aaron and his sons regarding the torah ("law/procedure") of the burnt offering. It specifies that the offering must remain on the altar's hearth through the night until morning, with the altar fire kept burning continuously.

Key words

• tzav ("command", H6680) — piel imperative, an intensified command form directing Moses to instruct Aaron.
• torat ("law of", H8451) — feminine singular construct, linking directly to ha'olah, meaning "the procedure/regulation of the burnt offering."
• mokdah ("hearth", H4169) — feminine singular noun designating the specific burning-place on the altar where the offering rests.
• tukad ("it will burn", H3344) — hophal imperfect, a causative-passive form: the fire is made to burn/kept burning by an external agent, not burning on its own.
• bo ("in it/on it", H9033 + H9003) — pronominal suffix attached to the preposition, referring back to the altar (ha-mizbeach, H4196).

What the text says

The verse is built around a chain of construct phrases. The initial imperative tzav ("command") governs two direct objects marked by 'et- (H0853): Aaron and "his sons" (banav, H1121A with suffix H9023), followed by the infinitive le'mor ("saying", H0559) introducing the content of the command. The core legal formula is zot torat ha'olah — "this [is] the law of the burnt offering" — using the construct noun torat (H8451) directly bound to ha'olah (H5930A), the definite noun "the burnt offering."

A notable grammatical feature is the repetition hi ha'olah ("it, the burnt offering") in position 14-16, which restates the subject before describing its placement "on the hearth" (mokdah, H4169) "on the altar" (ha-mizbeach, H4196) "all the night" (kol ha-laylah) "until the morning" ('ad ha-boker). The final clause shifts to describe the altar's fire ('esh ha-mizbeach, construct H0784 + H4196) using the hophal verb tukad (H3344) — a causative-passive form indicating the fire is kept burning through ongoing tending, not that it burns spontaneously. The suffix bo ("on it", H9033) closes the clause by referring back to the altar.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew text as given ends with tukad bo ("it will burn/be kept burning on it"). The LXX (Swete) adds an additional clause not present in the Hebrew data: οὐ σβεσθήσεται ("it shall not be extinguished"), extending the sentence beyond what the Hebrew word-list shows. The Vulgate renders tukad as cremabitur ("it will be burned/consumed"), a passive form describing the offering's consumption rather than emphasizing the causative "kept burning" nuance of the Hebrew hophal.