Numbers 19:17

Summary

The verse instructs that, for the unclean person, someone is to take some of the ashes from the burnt sin offering, and water is to be poured over them into a vessel. It describes the assembling of materials used in a purification rite involving ash and water.

Key words

• la.ke.Chu ("they will take", H3947G) — qal sequential perfect, plural subject; continues the narrative chain and indicates an unspecified group performing the action.
• ta.Me' ("unclean [person]", H2931) — masculine singular adjective functioning as a substantive, marking the person for whom the rite is performed.
• 'a.Far ("dust of", H6083) and se.re.Fat ("burning of", H8316) — both masculine/feminine singular nouns in the construct state, forming a chain "dust of the burning of the sin offering," i.e., the ashes produced by burning the sin offering.
• cha.Tat ("sin offering", H2403H) — feminine singular noun, the final element closing the construct chain begun by 'a.Far and se.re.Fat.
• na.Tan ("he will put", H5414H) — qal sequential perfect, singular subject, shifting from the plural subject of la.ke.Chu to a singular one for this action.
• chai.Yim ("living", H2416A) — masculine plural adjective agreeing with Ma.yim ("water", H4325G), forming the fixed expression "living water," referring to flowing or fresh water as opposed to stagnant water.

What the text says

The sentence is built as a double construct chain: 'a.Far ("dust of") governs se.re.Fat ("burning of"), which in turn governs ha-chaTat ("the sin offering"). This produces the sense "some of the dust/ashes from the burning of the sin offering," a nested genitive structure rather than a single noun. The preposition me- ("some of") attached to 'a.Far indicates that only a portion of this ash is taken, not all of it.

A grammatical feature worth noting is the shift in verbal number: la.ke.Chu ("they will take") is plural, while na.tan ("he will put") is singular. The text moves from an unspecified plural group performing the collection of ash to a singular actor who pours the water — the Hebrew does not name this singular subject explicitly here, relying on the verb form alone to signal the change.

The phrase Ma.yim chai.Yim ("living water") uses the adjective chai.Yim in the plural to agree with the plural noun Ma.yim, an idiom describing water that is fresh or flowing, distinct from standing water.

Differences between versions

The Vulgate renders the double construct chain as "cineribus combustionis atque peccati" ("ashes of the burning and of the sin"), using "atque" to join two nouns rather than preserving the Hebrew's nested construct structure. The LXX gives ἀπὸ τῆς σποδιᾶς τῆς κατακεκαυμένης τοῦ ἁγνισμοῦ ("from the ash of that which has been burned, of the purification"), also restructuring the chain but keeping three governed elements. The BSB introduces "For the purification of the unclean person," where the Hebrew simply has la-Tame' ("for the unclean [person]"), without an explicit noun corresponding to "purification."