Leviticus 9:17

Summary

The verse describes Aaron presenting the grain offering, filling his palm with a portion of it, and burning that portion on the altar, in addition to the burnt offering already made that morning.

Key words

• yakrev ("he presented", H7126H) — hiphil (causative) verb with narrative vav, marking the next sequential action: he caused the offering to draw near.
• minchah ("grain offering", H4503G) — feminine singular noun with definite article, the object being presented.
• khapo ("his palm", H3709G) — construct noun with pronominal suffix "his," identifying the specific body part used to take the portion.
• yaqter ("he made [it] smoke", H6999A) — hiphil verb, narrative sequence, describing the causative act of burning so that smoke rises.
• milevad ("besides", H0905J) — construct noun functioning as a preposition, signaling that this act is additional to another already performed.

What the text says

The verse is built as a chain of three narrative-vav clauses, each advancing the action in sequence: va-yaqrev ("and he presented"), va-yemalle ("and he filled", H4390, piel), and va-yaqter ("and he made smoke"). This chain structure is typical of Biblical Hebrew narrative, where each verb form signals "and then," producing a tightly linked sequence of ritual steps rather than three independent statements.

The phrase va-yemalle khapo mimennah ("and he filled his palm from it") uses the construct noun khapo ("his palm") with a pronominal suffix, followed by the preposition mimennah ("some of it/from it," H4480A + H9034), specifying that only a portion — a handful — of the grain offering was taken, not the whole. The final clause anchors the action in ritual space and time: al ha-mizbeach ("on the altar", H4196) states the location, while milevad ‘olat ha-boqer ("besides the burnt offering of the morning") uses the construct chain ’olat ha-boqer ("burnt offering of-the morning") to specify that this grain offering was additional to a separate, already-completed morning burnt offering, distinguishing the two rites as sequential but distinct.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders khapo ("his palm", H3709G) as τὰς χεῖρας ("the hands," plural), where the Hebrew specifies a single khaph ("palm," singular). The Vulgate paraphrases the second clause as "libamenta, quæ pariter offeruntur" ("libations offered together"), introducing the term "libamenta" not present in the Hebrew, which speaks only of filling the palm from the minchah. The Vulgate also renders milevad ("besides", H0905J) as "absque cæremoniis" ("without the ceremonies of"), a more interpretive phrase than the Hebrew's simple construct "besides/apart from."