Leviticus 8:12

Summary

The verse narrates Moses pouring anointing oil on Aaron's head and anointing him, with the stated purpose of setting him apart as holy. The action is presented as a two-step ritual sequence culminating in a stated goal expressed through an infinitive construction.

Key words

• yiTzok ("he poured", H3332G) — qal narrative verb; the vav-consecutive form ties this action directly into the preceding narrative sequence of chapter 8.
• shemen ("oil of", H8081) — masculine singular construct, linked to ha-mishchah ("the anointing", H4888A), forming the fixed phrase "oil of anointing."
• rosh ("head of", H7218A) — masculine singular construct governing Aharon, specifying the exact location of the pouring.
• yimshach ("he anointed", H4886) — second qal narrative verb, distinct from yiTzok; the text separates "pouring" and "anointing" as two sequential acts rather than treating them as one event.
• ka.de.Sh ("set apart as holy", H6942G) — piel infinitive with pronominal suffix -o ("him"), forming le-qaddesho ("to consecrate him"); the infinitive with prefixed le- marks purpose or result, not a third coordinate action.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built on two narrative verbs joined by the vav-consecutive chain: va-yiTzok ("and he poured") and va-yimshach ("and he anointed"). Both verbs share an unstated subject carried over from the preceding verses (identifiable as Moses from context, though the name does not appear in this verse itself). The object of the first verb is mi-shemen ha-mishchah ("from the oil of the anointing"), using the partitive preposition mi- ("some of," H9006), indicating that only a portion of the oil was poured, not the whole supply.

After the second verb, yimshach, the direct object oto ("him") is marked by the object marker 'et (H0853) with a pronominal suffix. The clause then closes with le-qaddesho, a piel infinitive with an attached third-person suffix. Grammatically, this infinitive construction subordinates the notion of "sanctifying" to the two preceding finite verbs: it expresses the purpose or intended outcome of the pouring and anointing, rather than describing a separate, sequential event of the same narrative weight as yiTzok and yimshach.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the final clause with a finite verb, καὶ ἡγίασεν αὐτόν ("and he sanctified him"), placing "sanctifying" grammatically on par with "anointing," where the Hebrew le-qaddesho is an infinitive expressing purpose rather than a third coordinate action. The Vulgate similarly uses the finite verb consecravit ("and he consecrated"), matching the LXX's treatment rather than the Hebrew's subordinate infinitival structure. The LXX also explicitly names the subject as Μωσῆς ("Moses"), where the Hebrew verse itself leaves the subject unstated, relying on narrative continuity from prior verses.