Leviticus 7:1

Summary

Leviticus 7:1 introduces the technical instructions (torah) concerning the asham offering, identifying it as belonging to the category of "holy of holies" — the highest grade of sanctity among sacrificial offerings.

Key words

• Zot ("this", H2063) — feminine demonstrative pronoun that points forward to the legal content about to be specified.
• toRat ("law/procedure of", H8451) — construct form of torah; being in construct state, it must attach to what follows, forming "the procedure of X."
• 'aSham ("guilt offering", H0817) — masculine singular noun naming the specific sacrifice type being regulated.
• Kodesh ("holy thing of", H6944) — construct form, again grammatically bound to the next word rather than standing alone.
• kadaShim ("holy things", H6944) — plural noun completing the construct chain with Kodesh, producing the idiomatic superlative "holiest of holy things."
• Hu ("it", H1931) — third-person pronoun functioning as the copula ("is") in this nominal clause, linking the offering back to its stated status.

What the text says

The verse is built as a nominal (verbless) sentence, typical of legal or definitional statements in Hebrew. The first half, ve-Zot toRat ha-'aSham ("and this [is] the torah of the guilt offering"), uses the construct chain toRat ha-'aSham to name the subject matter: the set of procedures governing the 'aSham sacrifice. The demonstrative Zot acts cataphorically, signaling that details will follow in subsequent verses.

The second half, Kodesh kadaShim Hu, repeats the construct pattern seen in the first clause but for a different purpose: rather than naming a procedure, Kodesh kadaShim is an idiomatic doubling construction (noun + its own plural in construct) that Biblical Hebrew uses to express intensification — "holy of holies," i.e., a thing of the highest degree of holiness. The pronoun Hu closes the clause, functioning as the implicit "is" that Hebrew nominal sentences require, and it grammatically refers back to the 'aSham offering just named.

Differences between versions

The LXX (Swete) diverges substantially in content: it reads "the law of the sacrifice of soterios" (θυσία σωτηρίου, a peace/thanksgiving offering) rather than the guilt offering ('aSham) found in the Hebrew, and it adds "which they will bring to the Lord" (ἣν προσοίσουσιν Κυρίῳ), a clause absent from the Hebrew text; it also omits any equivalent to Kodesh kadaShim ("holy of holies").

The Vulgate follows the Hebrew closely: "lex hostiae pro delicto, Sancta sanctorum est" ("the law of the sacrifice for the delict/guilt, it is the holy of holies"), preserving both the offering type and the superlative holiness expression.