Numbers 18:9

Summary

The verse specifies which portions of the "holy of holies" offerings — those not entirely consumed by fire — belong to Aaron and his sons. It lists categories (general offering, grain offering, sin offering, guilt offering) that the Israelites "return" to God and declares this material "holy of holies" for the priestly family.

Key words

• zeh ("this", H2088) — the demonstrative particle opens the verse, pointing forward to the material enumerated afterward as the specific portion under discussion.
• qodesh haqqodashim (Ko.desh... ha.qqoda.Shim, H6944G) — construct chain "holy thing of the holy things," i.e. the superlative category "holy of holies"; it appears twice in the verse, first classifying the source-material, later restating the priests' portion as belonging to this same category.
• min-ha'esh ("from the fire", H4480A + H0784) — a prepositional phrase marking the offerings as taken from what is associated with the fire, distinguishing this portion from the part actually burned on the altar.
• yashivu (ya.Shi.vu, H7725K) — hiphil (causative) imperfect, "they will cause to return/give back"; the causative stem frames the offerings as something the people actively bring back to the deity, not merely surrender.
• li ("to me", H9030) — first-person suffix marking the offerings as directed toward the speaker (the divine voice), situating the verse as reported speech.

What the text says

The sentence opens with zeh yihyeh lekha — "this will belong to you" — establishing a legal/distributive clause before any content is specified. The content is then supplied through a chain of construct phrases: qodesh haqqodashim min-ha'esh ("holy thing of the holy things, from the fire"), followed by four parallel construct nouns — qorban ("offering"), minchah ("grain offering"), chatta't ("sin offering"), and asham ("guilt offering") — each governed by kol ("every/all of") and marked with the third-person plural suffix -am ("their"), indicating these are the people's offerings. The relative clause asher yashivu li ("which they will give back to me") uses the hiphil of shuv, a causative form suggesting the offerings are actively returned to the divine addressee rather than simply handed over.

The verse closes by repeating qodesh qadashim as a predicate — "it is a holy thing of the holy things for you" — followed by lekha hu' ulevaneikha ("it is for you and for your sons"), reinforcing through repetition of the same construct phrase that the material described has the same sanctified status as its source category.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew lists the offering types in the order qorban, minchah, chatta't, asham (offering, grain, sin, guilt); the LXX order is δώρων, θυσιασμάτων, πλημμελίας, ἁμαρτιῶν, which reverses the position of "guilt" (πλημμελία) and "sin" (ἁμαρτία) relative to the Hebrew chatta't/asham sequence. The Vulgate order (oblatio, sacrificium, peccato, delicto) follows the Hebrew sequence of sin before guilt. Additionally, the Hebrew phrase min-ha'esh ("from the fire") has no direct lexical counterpart in the Vulgate's rendering ("quae sanctificantur et oblata sunt Domino"), while the LXX renders the fire-related material with καρπωμάτων ("of the burnt-offerings") rather than a literal "fire" term.