Leviticus 8:25

Summary

The verse describes Moses taking specific portions of fat and organs from the ram of ordination as part of the priestly consecration ritual: the fat, the fat tail, the fat covering the entrails, the liver's lobe, both kidneys with their fat, and the right thigh. The sentence is built as a single verb governing a long chain of direct objects.

Key words

• va-yiqqach ("and he took", H3947G) — narrative-vav + qal verb, establishing the single main action of the verse; the subject "he" (Moses, per context) governs everything that follows.
• cheilev ("fat", H2459) — appears three times (items 5, 14, 31) referring to distinct fat portions: general fat, fat on the entrails, and the fat "of them" (the kidneys).
• alyah ("fat tail", H0451) — feminine singular noun, a body part specific to the sacrificial animal, distinct from the general cheilev.
• yoteret ("lobe of", H3508) — construct form, meaning it cannot stand alone but requires the following noun kaved ("liver", H3516) to complete its meaning: "the lobe of the liver."
• shtei ("two of", H8147) — dual cardinal number in construct, syntactically binding to kelayot ("kidneys", H3629) to specify "the two kidneys" as a paired unit.

What the text says

The verse consists of one finite verb, va-yiqqach ("and he took", H3947G), followed by a chain of seven direct objects, each introduced by the object marker 'et (H0853, untranslated) and joined by the conjunction ve ("and", H9002). This repetitive structure — 'et... ve'et... ve'et... — creates a list-like rhythm typical of ritual/procedural Hebrew prose, where each item receives its own marker rather than being grouped with commas alone as in English.

Several nouns appear in construct state, meaning they are grammatically bound to the noun that follows and cannot be understood independently: yoteret ha-kaved ("the lobe of the liver", H3508+H3516), shtei ha-kelayot ("the two of the kidneys", H8147+H3629), and shoq ha-yamin ("the thigh of the right [side]", H7785+H3225G). This construct chaining is a hallmark of Hebrew syntax for expressing possession or specification without a separate word for "of."

The word cheilev ("fat", H2459) occurs three times with different referents: the general fat of the animal (item 5), the fat specifically located "on the entrails" ('al ha-qerev, items 14-18), and "their fat" (chelev-hen, item 31), referring back to the kidneys via the third-person feminine plural suffix -hen ("their", H9029). This suffix construction attaches the possessive directly to the noun stem, another feature not always visible in translation.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders shoq ha-yamin ("thigh of the right", H7785+H3225G) as τὸν βραχίονα τὸν δεξιόν ("the right arm/shoulder"), while the Vulgate uses armo dextro ("right shoulder"). Both differ from the more literal Hebrew shoq which several modern translations (BSB, SBLIBRE) render as "thigh." The Hebrew 'alyah ("fat tail", H0451) is rendered by the Vulgate as caudam ("tail") and by the LXX as τὴν ὀσφὺν ("the loin"), reflecting different understandings of this anatomical term.