Numbers 5:26

Summary

The verse describes the priest taking a handful of the grain offering as a memorial portion, burning it on the altar, and afterward giving the woman the water to drink. It concludes the ritual actions preceding the drinking of the water described in the surrounding passage.

Key words

• ka.Matz ("he will take a handful", H7061) — qal sequential perfect; continues the narrative chain of priestly actions, denoting the specific act of grasping a portion with the hand.
• 'az.Ka.ra.Ta + h ("memorial offering", H0234 + H9024) — feminine singular construct noun with pronominal suffix "its/her," identifying the handful as belonging to the min.Chah ("grain offering", H4503G) and marking it as the portion that serves a commemorative function.
• hik.Tir ("he will make [it] smoke", H6999A) — hiphil causative sequential perfect; the priest causes the offering to go up in smoke, distinct from a simple burning verb.
• yash.Keh ("he will make drink", H8248H) — hiphil imperfect; causative form indicating the priest actively causes the woman to drink, using a different verbal aspect (imperfect) than the preceding sequential perfects.
• 'a.Char ("after", H0310A) — marks temporal sequence, placing the drinking action explicitly after the burning.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence chains three actions using the vav-consecutive construction typical of narrative sequence: ka.Matz ("he will take a handful", H7061), hik.Tir ("he will make [it] smoke", H6999A), and finally yash.Keh ("he will make drink", H8248H). The first two verbs are sequential perfects, continuing a chain of prior actions in the ritual context. The third verb shifts to an imperfect form, still causative (hiphil), but grammatically distinguished — this may reflect a shift in aspect or simply completes the sequence introduced by 'a.Char ("after", H0310A), which explicitly marks the temporal relationship between burning and drinking.

The object of the priest's handful is specified twice with the direct object marker 'et (H0853): first the 'az.Ka.ra.Ta ("memorial offering", H0234) with its pronominal suffix "its" referring back to the min.Chah ("grain offering", H4503G), and later ha.'i.Shah ("the woman", H0802G) and ha.Ma.yim ("the waters", H4325G) as the two objects of the drinking action. The directional he suffix on miz.Be.cha ("altar", H4196) indicates motion "toward" the altar, reinforcing that the smoke offering is directed there.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders hik.Tir ("he will make [it] smoke", H6999A) with anoisei ("he will bring up"), a verb of elevation rather than one specifically denoting smoke, though the same causative sense of priestly action is preserved. The Vulgate's aquas amarissimas ("very bitter waters") adds an intensifying qualifier ("bitter") not present in the Hebrew ha.Ma.yim ("the waters", H4325G), which here contains no adjective describing the water's taste.