Leviticus 9:7

Summary

Moses instructs Aaron to approach the altar and perform two sets of ritual actions: first offering his own chatta't ("sin offering", H2403H) and olah ("burnt offering", H5930A) to make atonement for himself and the people, then presenting the people's own qorban ("offering", H7133A) to make atonement for them, in accordance with what Yehovah commanded.

Key words

• ke.Rav ("draw near", H7126G) — qal imperative, 2nd person masculine singular; a direct command to Aaron to physically approach the altar.
• cha.ta.te.kha ("your sin offering", H2403H) — feminine singular noun in construct form with the 2nd person masculine suffix kha ("your", H9021), marking it as belonging specifically to Aaron.
• kha.Per ("make atonement", H3722A) — piel (intensive) imperative, repeated twice in the verse (once for Aaron/people together, once for the people alone), indicating an emphatic ritual action rather than a simple verbal act.
• ba.'ad ("for", H1157) — construct form of a noun functioning prepositionally, used twice (ba.'ad.kha, "for yourself"; ve.'Ad ha.'Am, "for the people") to specify the beneficiaries of the atonement action.
• tzi.Vah ("he has commanded", H6680) — piel perfect, 3rd person masculine singular, marking completed prior action; the verb governs Yehovah as subject, closing the verse by anchoring Aaron's actions to a prior divine instruction.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built as a chain of imperatives issued by Moses to Aaron, linked by the narrative va ("and", H9001/H9002) conjunction pattern typical of Biblical Hebrew instruction sequences. The structure moves from approach (ke.Rav, H7126G) to two paired actions using the same verb 'a.Seh ("offer", H6213I/H6213A) — first for Aaron's own chatta't and olah, then for the people's qorban — each followed by the piel imperative kha.Per ("make atonement", H3722A). This repetition creates a structural parallel: Aaron performs an action, then makes atonement, twice over, first for himself paired with the people (ba.'ad.kha u.ve.'Ad ha.'Am, "for yourself and for the people"), and second for the people alone (ba.'a.Dam, "for them").

The construct forms cha.ta.te.kha and 'o.la.Te.kha ("your sin offering", "your burnt offering") attach the possessive suffix directly to the noun, a compact grammatical feature not always visible in translation, showing these offerings are specifically Aaron's own before he acts on behalf of the people. The final clause closes the verse by grounding the entire instruction sequence in a prior command from Yah.weh (H3068G), using the piel perfect tzi.Vah ("he has commanded", H6680) to mark this as previously established instruction rather than a new one.

Differences between versions

The LXX adds "τῷ Μωυσῇ" ("to Moses") at the end, specifying that Yehovah's command in the past was given to Moses — a detail not present in the Hebrew text, which simply states tzi.Vah Yehovah ("Yehovah has commanded") without naming a recipient. The Vulgate renders ba.'ad ha.'Am ("for the people") as "pro eo" ("for it/him"), a shift in referent from the Hebrew's collective "the people" to a singular pronoun. The Vulgate also introduces "cumque mactaveris hostiam populi" ("and when you have slaughtered the people's victim"), a temporal clause structure not present in the Hebrew's simple imperative sequence.