Numbers 19:3

Summary

The verse instructs that the red heifer be handed over to Eleazar the priest, taken outside the camp, and slaughtered in his presence. It is part of the ritual sequence describing the preparation of the heifer whose ashes are used for purification.

Key words

• netattem ("you will give", H5414) — qal sequential perfect, 2nd person masculine plural: continues a chain of commands addressed to the community.
• hotzi ("he will take out", H3318) — hiphil (causative) sequential perfect, 3rd person masculine singular: grammatically causative, "cause to go out," with an unspecified singular subject.
• shachat ("someone will slaughter", H7819) — qal sequential perfect, 3rd person masculine singular: same verbal form as hotzi, but the gloss marks the subject as indefinite rather than naming Eleazar directly.
• chutz ("outside", H2351) — masculine singular noun in construct state, forming the phrase "outside of the camp" (chutz lammachaneh).
• lefanav ("before him", H6440) — masculine plural construct noun with 3rd person masculine singular suffix, literally "to the faces of him," indicating physical presence.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built as a chain of three sequential perfect verbs — netattem, hotzi, shachat — each continuing the narrative/legal sequence begun by the preceding verse. The first verb is explicitly plural ("you all will give"), addressed to the Israelites. The next two verbs, hotzi and shachat, are both third person masculine singular in form. Because Eleazar is the most recently named referent, these singular verbs can be read as continuing to describe his actions ("he will bring it out... he will slaughter it"), though the same consonantal form could also carry an impersonal sense ("it is brought out... it is slaughtered") since biblical Hebrew sometimes uses third singular verbs indefinitely. The final phrase lefanav, "before him," uses a plural construct noun (panim, "faces") with a singular suffix, a common way in Biblical Hebrew to express "in his presence."

Differences between versions

The Hebrew verbs hotzi and shachat are singular in form, compatible with Eleazar as the one who brings out and slaughters the heifer. The LXX renders both actions with plural verbs — ἐξάξουσιν ("they will bring out") and σφάξουσιν ("they will slaughter") — implying unspecified plural agents rather than Eleazar alone. The Vulgate follows the singular pattern of the Hebrew, using "qui eductam... immolabit" ("who, having brought it out, will sacrifice it"), explicitly tying both actions to Eleazar (qui, "who"). The LXX additionally adds εἰς τόπον καθαρόν ("into a clean place"), a phrase not present in the Hebrew text given here.