Leviticus 7:8

Summary

The verse establishes that the priest who performs the burnt offering ('olah, H5930A) for any individual keeps the animal's hide for himself. The Hebrew constructs a clear conditional-relative structure: the priest identified as the one presenting the offering is the one entitled to its skin.

Key words

• ha-makriv ("the one presenting/who presents", H7126H) — Hiphil participle with definite article, functioning as a substantive: "the priest, the-one-who-presents." The participle marks an ongoing or characteristic role, not a single completed act.
• 'olat ("burnt offering of", H5930A) — feminine singular construct form, linking directly to 'ish ("anyone", H0376I) to mean "a burnt offering belonging to/on behalf of a person."
• hikriv ("he presented", H7126H) — same root as makriv but in the Qal-causative perfect (completed action), referring back to the specific act already done, contrasted with the participial description of the priest's general function.
• lo ("to him", H9033) — pronominal suffix attached to the preposition, emphasizing personal possession: the hide goes specifically "to him," i.e., to the officiating priest.
• yihyeh ("it will belong/will be", H1961) — Qal imperfect, expressing a standing rule or ongoing entitlement rather than a one-time event.

What the text says

The sentence is built around two verbal forms from the same root, qrb ("to bring near/present," H7126H): first the participle ha-makriv ("the one presenting"), which identifies the priest by his ongoing function, and then the perfect hikriv ("he presented"), which refers to the completed act of offering. This grammatical pairing ties the priest's general role to the specific transaction just performed, reinforcing that the hide belongs to whichever priest actually carried out that particular offering, not to priests as an undifferentiated class.

The construct chain 'olat 'ish ("burnt offering of a man") and 'or ha-'olah ("hide of the burnt offering") both use construct forms (H5930A appearing twice) to link the offering to its owner and then to its hide, creating a chain of possession that the final clause resolves in the priest's favor. The imperfect verb yihyeh ("it will be/belong") closes the verse with a durative sense, presenting this as a standing provision rather than a single instance.

Differences between versions

The Vulgate (Sacerdos qui offert holocausti victimam, habebit pellem ejus) and the BSB closely follow the Hebrew's construct chain and pronoun structure. The Septuagint text supplied here does not correspond to this content at all — it discusses eating flesh on the third day and incurring guilt, a topic unrelated to the hide of the burnt offering, indicating the LXX text provided is mismatched to this verse rather than a genuine translation divergence.