Leviticus 8:23

Summary

Moses slaughters the ram of ordination, takes some of its blood, and applies it to three specific points on Aaron's body: the right earlobe, the thumb of the right hand, and the big toe of the right foot.

Key words

• yish.Chat ("he cut [the] throat of it", H7819A) — qal narrative verb continuing the sequence of ritual actions; no explicit subject named here, though context implies Moses.
• dam ("blood", H1818) — masculine singular construct with pronominal suffix o ("its"), forming da.mo ("its blood"), the substance transferred from animal to person.
• tenukh ("lobe of", H8571) — masculine singular construct, grammatically bound to 'ozen ("ear of"), forming a construct chain "lobe of the ear of."
• bohen ("thumb/big toe of", H0931) — feminine singular construct, used twice (vv. 20, 26) for both hand and foot extremities, bound respectively to yad ("hand", H3027G) and regel ("foot", H7272).
• yemanit ("right", H3233G) — feminine singular adjective in construct form, repeated three times, each time specifying the laterality of ear, hand, and foot.

What the text says

The verse is built as a chain of three narrative verbs marked by the vav-consecutive (va-yishchat, va-yiqqach, va-yitten): "he slaughtered," "he took," "he put." Only the second verb explicitly names its subject, Mosheh ("Moses", H4872); the first and third verbs carry no separate subject in the Hebrew text, so the grammar itself keeps Moses as the implied agent of all three actions through the unbroken verbal chain.

The three body parts receiving blood are each expressed through a construct chain ending in the adjective yemanit ("right"): "lobe of the ear of Aaron, the right one," "thumb of his hand, the right one," "thumb of his foot, the right one." Hebrew places the adjective yemanit after the full construct phrase rather than attaching it directly to "ear," "hand," or "foot," which is a normal construct-chain pattern but means the laterality modifies the entire construct unit, not just the final noun. The word bohen (H0931) is used for both the hand and the foot extremity, translated in English as "thumb" and "big toe" respectively, though the same Hebrew term underlies both.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew repeats the full phrase "the right one" (yemanit) three separate times, once for each body part. The Vulgate abbreviates the third instance, using similiter ("likewise") for the foot instead of restating "right," while explicitly naming "right" (dextrae) for the ear and hand. The LXX preserves the threefold repetition of "right" (δεξιοῦ, δεξιᾶς, δεξιοῦ), paralleling the Hebrew structure more closely than the Vulgate's abbreviation.