Leviticus 8:6

Summary

The verse narrates two consecutive actions performed by Moses: he brought Aaron and his sons forward, and then he washed them with water. Both verbs are in the narrative (vav-consecutive) form, marking a sequence of events in the ordination ritual.

Key words

• yaqrev ("he presented", H7126H) — Hiphil (causative) narrative verb: Moses does not merely "come near" but causes Aaron and his sons to approach, i.e., he brings them forward.
• Aharon ("Aaron", H0175) — proper name, direct object of the presenting action, marked by the object marker 'et.
• banav ("his sons", H1121A) — masculine plural noun in construct with the pronominal suffix -o ("his"), linking the sons to Aaron rather than to Moses.
• yirchatz ("he washed", H7364) — Qal (simple, non-causative) narrative verb: here the text presents Moses as the one performing the washing directly, using the ordinary active stem rather than a causative one.
• ba-mayim ("with the water", H4325G) — noun preceded by preposition + article, specifying the means of washing.

What the text says

The verse is built on two narrative clauses joined by the vav-consecutive pattern (va-yiqtol), a standard Hebrew storytelling device that presents actions as sequential: first Moses "presented" (yaqrev), then he "washed" (yirchatz). The subject of both verbs is Moses, and both actions have the same object, "them" ('otam, referring back to Aaron and his sons), though in the first clause the object is spelled out fully ('et-Aharon ve-'et-banav) and in the second it appears as a pronominal suffix attached to the object marker.

A grammatical contrast worth noting is the verb stem: yaqrev is Hiphil, a causative form, expressing that Moses caused Aaron and his sons to draw near (rather than them approaching on their own). yirchatz, by contrast, is Qal, the basic active stem, indicating that Moses himself carried out the washing action on them, not that he caused them to wash themselves. The construct phrase banav ("sons of him") ties the sons grammatically to Aaron via the suffix, clarifying whose sons are meant in a sentence where both Moses and Aaron are already in view.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the first verb with prosēgagen ("he brought near/led forward"), aligning with the Hiphil causative sense of yaqrev. The Vulgate uses obtulit ("he offered/presented"), which frames the action in more sacrificial/offering language than the Hebrew's neutral "bring near." For the washing, the Vulgate's lavisset ("had washed") appears in a subordinate temporal clause ("Cumque lavisset eos..."), restructuring the sequence into a dependent construction, whereas the Hebrew and LXX both preserve it as a separate coordinated main clause.