Leviticus 9:16

Summary

The verse narrates that Aaron presented the burnt offering and performed it according to the prescribed ordinance. Two sequential verbs describe first the act of bringing the offering forward, then the act of executing the ritual itself.

Key words

• yaqrev ("he presented", H7126H) — hiphil (causative) narrative verb: the causative stem indicates he caused the offering to be brought near/presented, not merely that it approached on its own.
• ha-'olah ("the burnt offering", H5930A) — feminine singular noun with definite article, marking a specific, already-known category of offering within the ritual sequence.
• ya'aseha ("he offered it", H6213I) — qal narrative verb with third-person feminine singular pronominal suffix ("her/it"), referring back grammatically to ha-'olah; the verb itself is the common "do/make" verb, here meaning to perform or execute the offering.
• ka-mishpat ("according to the ordinance", H4941G) — preposition ka ("according to the") plus the noun mishpat ("ordinance"), indicating conformity to a fixed rule or legal procedure rather than improvisation.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built from two coordinated narrative clauses, each opened by the narrative vav (H9001), which chains actions in sequence ("and then... and then..."). The first clause, va-yaqrev 'et-ha-'olah, uses the hiphil form of the verb qarav ("to be near"), so the causative sense is "he caused [it] to be presented" — a technical term for bringing an offering into position at the altar. The direct object marker 'et (H0853) signals that ha-'olah is the object being presented, though it has no independent gloss in English.

The second clause, va-ya'aseha ka-mishpat, shifts to the qal form of the general verb "to do/make" (H6213I), now carrying the pronominal suffix -ha ("it/her") that refers back to the feminine noun ha-'olah. This creates a two-step structure: first the offering is brought near (presentation), then it is actually carried out or executed (performance), and this second action is qualified by ka-mishpat, "according to the ordinance" — indicating that the procedure followed a fixed, prescribed standard rather than being described in further detail.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders ka-mishpat ("according to the ordinance") as hōs kathēkei ("as is fitting/proper"), which shifts the sense from conformity to a specific written or established rule toward general propriety. The Vulgate fragment provided (fecit holocaustum, "he made/offered the burnt offering") condenses both Hebrew verbs into a single Latin verb and does not preserve the ka-mishpat phrase in this excerpt.