66 Lena-Sofia Tiemeyer In the case of Ezek 44,19, we read that µhydgbb µ[h ta wçdqy alw (= “and [the priests] will not sanctify the people with their clothes”), reflecting the following syntactical structure. “The priests” are the formal subject of the verb “to sanctify”; “their clothes” are the instrument, i.e. the tool with which the priests would sanctify the people; “the people”, i.e. the ones in danger of being sanctified, are the direct object. From a less formal point of view, the clothes do the actual sanctification and can thus be understood to be the real agent: the danger is that the priests’ clothes, while the priests move about in the courtyard, might come into contact with the people and transfer their ritual status to them. The syntactical structure of Hag 2,12 is similar to Ezek 44,19: the person carrying the meat, probably to be identified as a priest (see further below), is the subject of the verbs açy and [gnw; “the meat” is the direct object of these verbs; “the folds”, the tool with which a person could sanctify someone / something else, is the instrument. The main syntactic difference between the two texts lies in denoting the object, i.e. the persons / items at risk touching the sanctified item. Rather than forming the direct object as in Ezek 44,19, “the bread” and “the stew” etc. form collectively the subject of the stative meaning of the verb çdqy. Thus, like Ezek 44,19, Hag 2,12 implies that these items are in danger of being sanctified, but it uses a stative rather than an active sentence structure. Accordingly, we can best translate the expression çdqy […] µjlh la wpnkb [gnw as “and touches the bread […] with his clothes; does [the latter entity in question] become sanctified?” To sum up, Ezek 44,19 and Hag 2,12 refer to the same topic, namely the potential sanctification of a person or an item via indirect touch. The use of two different verbal conjugations merely reflects syntactic differences and, as such, there is no need to look for a variance in meaning. Furthermore, even though the priests are the formal subject of the verb “to sanctify” in Ezek 44,19, it is their clothes that are responsible for the transmission of the ritual status, as also in Hag 2,12. Hence, the ritual status of the wearer of the clothes is in these two particular cases immaterial. b) Exegetical Concerns Our next issue concerns the source of the sanctification of the priests’ clothes in Ezek 44,19: are the priests’ clothes holy owing to their coming into contact with holy items whilst being worn in the sanctuary, or are the clothes holy in their own right? In other words, does Ezek 44,19 really speak of secondary touch or does it, as some scholars argue, speak only of primary touch? It is doubtful whether we can distinguish between the level of holiness between the priests’ clothes that have become sanctified through prolonged exposure to holy items in the course of the priests’ temple service (Ezek 44,19), and the priest’s clothes that have been exposed to holy items in the more limited form of one piece of sanctified meat carried in the clothes (Hag 2,12). Instead, the two cases are parallel: the priests’ clothes have become sanctified via primary touch in both cases, and both cases deal with the power of these clothes to pass on their acquired but not innate ritual status.