Numbers 19:6

Summary

The verse instructs that the priest take cedar wood, hyssop, and scarlet material, and throw them into the fire consuming the red heifer. It describes a specific ritual action performed on the burning animal from Numbers 19's purification rite.

Key words

• la.Kach ("he will take", H3947G) — qal sequential perfect; continues the narrative chain from the preceding verse, indicating the priest's next required action.
• 'etz ("wood of", H6086G) — construct form, meaning it must be read together with the following noun 'Erez ("cedar", H0730) to form the phrase "wood of cedar."
• 'e.Zov ("hyssop", H0231) — absolute noun, joined by the conjunction ve ("and", H9002) to the preceding item, listing a second material.
• she.Ni ("scarlet of", H8144) — construct form, linked to to.La.'at ("scarlet stuff", H8438B) to form the compound expression "scarlet of the scarlet-worm" (i.e., crimson dyed material).
• hish.Likh ("he will throw", H7993) — hiphil (causative) sequential perfect; the causative stem marks the priest as the active agent causing the materials to be cast into the fire.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built as a chain of sequential perfects (la.Kach, then hish.Likh) joined by the narrative ve ("and", H9001), which in this legal-ritual context expresses a sequence of required actions rather than past narrative. The subject throughout is ha.Kohen ("the priest", H3548), marked definite with the article ha (H9009).

The three materials — 'etz 'Erez ("wood of cedar"), 'e.Zov ("hyssop"), and she.Ni to.La.'at ("scarlet of the scarlet-worm") — are listed as direct objects of la.Kach ("he will take"), each joined by the conjunction ve ("and", H9002). Two of the three nouns ('etz and she.Ni) appear in construct form, meaning they cannot stand alone grammatically but require their paired noun ('Erez, to.La.'at) to complete the phrase. This construct chaining is common in Hebrew for compound designations of specific materials.

The second clause uses hish.Likh ("he will throw", H7993), a hiphil form, which grammatically encodes that the priest causes the materials to enter the fire — an active, causative action rather than a passive placement. The destination is expressed through a chain of construct nouns: Tokh ("middle of", H8432) construct with se.re.Fat ("burning of", H8316) construct with ha.Pa.Rah ("the heifer", H6510), literally "into the middle of the burning of the heifer," specifying the object is thrown into the fire actively consuming the animal, not merely near it.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders she.Ni to.La.'at ("scarlet of the scarlet-worm") as κόκκινον ("scarlet/crimson"), a single adjective, collapsing the two-word Hebrew construct into one term without preserving the "worm" element. The Vulgate renders the same phrase as coccumque bis tinctum ("scarlet twice-dyed"), adding an interpretive detail ("twice-dyed") not explicit in the Hebrew construct phrase itself.