Leviticus 14:16

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

The priest shall dip his right finger in the oil that is in his left hand, and shall sprinkle some of the oil with his finger seven times before Yahweh.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Download a study sheet

One document with this verse’s original text, its word-by-word gloss line, the meaning frame, cross-references with their text, attributed commentary, and full source and license credits — printable, and it pastes into notes with its structure intact.

This verse Autodidact and up

Study sheet (.html) Plain text (.txt)

A passage Seminary Student

Up to 50 verses in one chapter. A passage sheet keeps up to 6 commentary sources and 12 cross-references per verse, in the order this page ranks them, and says so on the sheet whenever that leaves anything out. Ask for a single verse and you get the Autodidact verse sheet above.

Everything on this page stays free to read, with no account — the sheet is a download of what is already on screen, not access to it.

Want to remove ads? Support Godless Engineer

Word by word

More ways to search: Search by grammar → Find every occurrence → Compare this word →

Practice this passage: Drill this verse → Learn its vocabulary →

הַשְּׂמָאלִ֑ית

sᵉmâʼlîy

H8042

“the · left side”

Particle, Definite Article + Adjective, Adjective, Feminine, Singular, Absolute

Appears 9× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears at Leviticus 14:15

Full BDB Definition

Origin: from H8040

TWOT: 2267b

left, left side, on the left

About this verse

These counts appear in no published source. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged text and Lemma’s own curated glosses. What Lemma adds →

19: words
16: distinct lemmas
Pentateuch: section

Notable vocabulary

The rarest word here is הַשְּׂמָאלִ֑ית left side H8042 — appearing just 9 times in the whole Hebrew Bible.

Shared distinctive vocabulary

הַשְּׂמָאלִ֑ית left side H8042 occurs in 9 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:

Grammatical profile

2 verbs
9 nouns
3 adjectives
3 prepositions
2 particles

Verb forms

וְטָבַ֤ל Qal · Sequential Perfect
וְהִזָּ֨ה Hiphil · Sequential Perfect

Repetition

Words recur within this verse — often emphatic in Hebrew:

אֶצְבָּע֣וֹ finger H676 ×2
הַשֶּׁ֕מֶן fat H8081 ×2
מִן from H4480 ×2

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 30 words from the Hebrew and 34 from the Septuagint (LXX English) — closely comparable.

A rough comparison of the two English renderings, which tokenize alike — not a word-level alignment.

Word counts can differ between the Hebrew and the Greek without any difference in meaning — e.g. the Hebrew direct-object marker אֵת has no separate Greek word, and Greek often adds the article ὁ.

In the original languages it is 19 Hebrew tokens and 23 Greek tokens — but the two are counted differently (Hebrew bundles its prefixes and suffixes into one token; the Greek is in lemma form), so that isn’t a like-for-like length.

Cross-references

Topical passages linked to Leviticus 14:16 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.

Leviticus 4:6 The priest shall dip his finger in the blood, and sprinkle some of the blood seven times before Yahweh, before the veil of the sanctuary.
Leviticus 4:17 and the priest shall dip his finger in the blood, and sprinkle it seven times before Yahweh, before the veil.
Luke 17:18 Were there none found who returned to give glory to God, except this stranger?"
1 Corinthians 10:31 Whether therefore you eat, or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.

Cross-references courtesy of OpenBible.info (CC BY 4.0).

Hebrew and Greek witnesses Masoretic Hebrew ↔ Greek Septuagint

The same verse in the two great witnesses to the Old Testament, shown verse-for-verse.

These are two independent witnesses, not word-aligned to each other, and the Septuagint is shown in lemma (dictionary) form.

Hebrew Leviticus 14:16 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

וְטָבַ֤ל הַכֹּהֵן֙ אֶת אֶצְבָּע֣וֹ הַיְמָנִ֔ית מִן הַשֶּׁ֕מֶן אֲשֶׁ֥ר עַל כַּפּ֖וֹ הַשְּׂמָאלִ֑ית וְהִזָּ֨ה מִן הַשֶּׁ֧מֶן בְּאֶצְבָּע֛וֹ שֶׁ֥בַע פְּעָמִ֖ים לִפְנֵ֥י יְהוָֽה

The priest shall dip his right finger in the oil that is in his left hand, and shall sprinkle some of the oil with his finger seven times before Yahweh.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX Leviticus 14:16 Septuagint · lemma form

καί βάπτω ὁ δάκτυλος ὁ δεξιός ἀπό ὁ ἔλαιον ὁ εἰμί ἐπί ὁ χείρ ὁ ἀριστερός καί ῥαίνω ἑπτάκις ὁ δάκτυλος ἔναντι κύριος

And he shall dip with the finger of his right hand into some of the oil that is in his left hand, and he shall sprinkle with his finger seven times before the Lord.

LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) · Public Domain

Hebrew: Westminster Leningrad Codex (CC BY 4.0). Greek: Septuagint (public domain); English from LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) (Public Domain). How the Septuagint differs from the Hebrew →

Targum (Aramaic paraphrase)

The Targum is the ancient Jewish Aramaic paraphrase of the Hebrew Scriptures — an interpretive translation, not the Hebrew text itself. Onkelos (literal) and Pseudo-Jonathan (expansive) render the Torah, and Jonathan the Prophets. Coverage is partial: where no permissively-licensed English translation exists for a verse, only the Aramaic is shown. This is verse-level text, not a word-by-word alignment to the Hebrew.

Targum Onkelos Torah (Genesis–Deuteronomy)

וְיִטְבּוֹל כַּהֲנָא יָת אֶצְבְּעֵהּ דְיַמִינָא מִן מִשְׁחָא דִי עַל יְדֵהּ דִּשְׂמָאלָא וְיַדִי מִן מִשְׁחָא בְּאֶצְבְּעֵהּ שְׁבַע זִמְנִין קֳדָם יְיָ

(no public-domain English translation for this verse)

Targum Onkelos — Aramaic: “Onkelos Genesis” (public domain); “Onkelos Exodus” (public domain); “Onkelos Leviticus” (public domain); “Onkelos Numbers” (public domain); “Onkelos Deuteronomy” (public domain). English: “Sefaria Community Translation” (CC0 1.0 (public-domain dedication)); “J.W. Etheridge. The Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan Ben Uzziel on the Pentateuch. London: Longmans, Green, 1862” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan Torah (Genesis–Deuteronomy)

וִיטַמַשׁ כַּהֲנָא יַת אִיצְבְּעֵיהּ יְמִינָא מִן מִשְׁחָא דְעַל יְדֵיהּ שְמָאלָא וְיַדֵי מִשְׁחָא בְּאַדְבְּעֵיהּ שַׁבְעֲתָא זִמְנִין

and the priest shall dip his right hand finger in the oil which is in his left hand, and sprinkle the oil with his finger seven times.

Targum Pseudo-Jonathan — Aramaic: “Targum Jonathan on Genesis” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Exodus” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Leviticus” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Numbers” (public domain); “Targum Jonathan on Deuteronomy” (public domain). English: “The Targum of Jonathan ben Uzziel, trans. J. W. Etheridge, London, 1862” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.

Commentary

Notes on Leviticus 14:16 from classic Christian and Jewish commentators (each source and its license shown beneath its notes). The classic Christian expositions comment on the surrounding passage and are grouped to its opening verse, so a note may address several verses; the Jewish commentaries on the Tanakh (Rashi and others) are per-verse, so they appear only where the commentator wrote on this verse.

Lemma curates 59 commentaries, every one of them public domain or Creative Commons licensed, each selected and text-cleaned for this edition rather than reprinted as found. About our sources →

Trapp's Complete Commentary

John Trapp

Lev 14:16 And the priest shall dip his right finger in the oil that [is] in his left hand, and shall sprinkle of the oil with his finger seven times before the LORD:

Ver. 16. Seven times.] This might note the perfection of the joys God hath for his, and our imperfection in believing it, in that it was so many times sprinkled.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Geneva Bible (1599)

Geneva Bible translators

Hebrew, the finger of his right hand.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(16) And the priest shall dip.—The priest did not take the oil into the sanctuary, but, holding it in the hollow of his hand, stood in the court, whilst the officiating priest, turning his face to the Holy of Holies, dipped his right finger in the oil, and sprinkled it seven times upon the floor of the court, which was understood to mean “before the Lord,” dipping his finger every time he sprinkled the oil.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

John Gill's Exposition

And the priest shall dip his right finger,.... The finger of his right hand, the forefinger of it:

in the oil that is in his left hand; either that is in his own left hand, or in the left hand of a fellow priest:

and shall sprinkle of the oil with his finger seven times before the Lord; that is, over against the house of the holy of holies, as Jarchi, where Jehovah dwelt; but standing at the same time at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, which was eastward, and so he looked westward to the holy of holies; so says the Misnah (w), on which one of the commentators (x) observes, that he did not bring the oil into the temple to sprinkle it before the vail: but he stood in the court, and turned his face to the holy of holies, and so sprinkled upon the floor of the court: and the Jewish doctors are very express for it, according to the Misnah (y), that for every sprinkling there was a dipping; that as often as he sprinkled, so often he must dip his finger in the oil, and not that he might dip his finger once, and of that sprinkle two or three times; for the finger must be dipped seven times: this may denote the thanksgiving of the leper for his cleansing, proceeding from the grace of God, and the Lord's gracious acceptance of it.

(w) lbid. (x) Bartenora in ib. (y) Ibid.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The sevenfold sprinkling of the oil before the sanctuary, in addition to the waving of it, seems to have been intended to consecrate it to represent the spiritual gift consequent upon the covenant, the sealing of which had been figured by the sacramental blood of the offering.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations

i.e. Before the second veil which covered the holy of holies, where God is oft said to dwell, and to be present in a peculiar manner.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Whedon's Commentary on the Bible

Daniel D. Whedon

16. Sprinkle of the oil — Since it is ordinary oil, and not “the holy anointing” oil, (Exo_30:23-25,) the sevenfold sprinkling is its perfect consecration unto Jehovah.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

John Wesley's Explanatory Notes

Before the Lord - Before the second veil which covered the holy of holies.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

Rashi

Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki (Rashi)

'לפני ה‎ [AND HE SHALL SPRINKLE …] BEFORE THE LORD — in the direction of the Holy of Holies (cf. Sifra, Metzora, Chapter 3 9).

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.

Lesson kit

Teaching starters — assembled from the data on this page, not authored interpretation. Every prompt links to the verse data it draws on. Edit before teaching.

Leviticus, in the Pentateuch, opens this verse with 19 words (16 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is sᵉmâʼlîy (“left side”). A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

The word sᵉmâʼlîy carries the sense “left side.” How does it shape the verse?
Leviticus 14:15 shares the word «left side» with this verse. How do the two illuminate each other?
“finger” occurs 2× in this one verse. What is the effect of the repetition?
These translations render this verse differently; the difference is in the English rendering, not the original. What questions does that raise?
The verb «וְטָבַ֤ל» is Qal Sequential Perfect. How does its form color the action?
Reading how Trapp's Complete Commentary and Geneva Bible (1599) read this verse, where do the two commentators agree and where do they part?

Things to notice

This verse counts 19 Hebrew ↔ 23 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 7 words in this verse.
“finger” occurs 2× in this single verse.
16 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 19 words in this verse.