Leviticus 9:11

Summary

The verse states that the flesh and the hide of the sacrificial animal were burned with fire outside the camp, using a Qal perfect verb form to mark this as a completed action. The direct objects (flesh, hide) are placed before the verb, and the location is specified through a preposition construction meaning "outside the camp."

Key words

• basar ("flesh", H1320) — masculine singular noun, marked with the definite article and the object marker 'et (H0853), naming the first item burned.
• 'or ("hide", H5785) — masculine singular noun, likewise definite and marked with 'et, the second item burned.
• saraf ("he burned", H8313) — Qal perfect, third person masculine singular; the perfect aspect indicates a completed action, and the subject ("he") is embedded in the verb form rather than stated separately.
• chutz ("outside", H2351) — masculine singular noun in construct form, meaning "the outside of," here governed by the preposition min ("from").
• machaneh ("camp", H4264) — feminine singular noun, the term to which chutz is bound via the preposition la ("to/of"), forming the phrase "outside of the camp."

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence begins with the two objects of the burning — ha-basar ("the flesh") and ha-'or ("the hide") — each preceded by the object marker 'et, before the verb saraf ("he burned") appears. This object-before-verb ordering places syntactic weight on what was burned, distinguishing this action from other burnings described in the surrounding verses (such as burning fat on the altar). The subject of saraf is not written as a separate pronoun or noun; Hebrew Qal perfect verbs encode person, gender, and number in the verb form itself, so "he" is understood from the conjugation.

The phrase mi-chutz la-machaneh ("from the outside of the camp") combines two prepositions with a construct noun: min ("from") plus chutz ("outside," in construct form) plus la ("to/of") plus machaneh ("camp"). This layered construction functions idiomatically to express a single location — "outside the camp" — rather than movement "from" one place "to" another; the two prepositions work together rather than indicating separate directional senses.

Differences between versions

The Vulgate renders ha-'or ("the hide") as "pellem eius" ("its/his hide"), adding a possessive pronoun (eius) not present in the Hebrew text, which simply has the definite article. The Vulgate also inserts "vero" ("but/indeed"), a connective particle without a direct Hebrew counterpart in this clause. The LXX replaces the two Hebrew direct objects with a single pronoun after the verb — κατέκαυσεν αὐτὰ ("he burned them") — rather than repeating "flesh and hide" as separate nouns before the verb, differing from the Hebrew's fronted double-object structure.