Numbers 11:8
שָׁטוּ הָעָם וְלָֽקְטוּ וְטָחֲנוּ בָרֵחַיִם אוֹ דָכוּ בַּמְּדֹכָה וּבִשְּׁלוּ בַּפָּרוּר וְעָשׂוּ אֹתוֹ עֻגוֹת וְהָיָה טַעְמוֹ כְּטַעַם לְשַׁד הַשָּֽׁמֶן׃
✦ Hebrew interlinear
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✦ The same verse in five languages
שָׁטוּ֩ הָעָ֨ם וְלָֽקְט֜וּ וְטָחֲנ֣וּ בָרֵחַ֗יִם א֤וֹ דָכוּ֙ בַּמְּדֹכָ֔ה וּבִשְּׁלוּ֙ בַּפָּר֔וּר וְעָשׂ֥וּ אֹת֖וֹ עֻג֑וֹת וְהָיָ֣ה טַעְמ֔וֹ כְּטַ֖עַם לְשַׁ֥ד הַשָּֽׁמֶן׃
καὶ διεπορεύετο ὁ λαὸς καὶ συνέλεγον, καὶ ἤληθον αὐτὸ ἐν τῷ μύλῳ καὶ ἔτριβον ἐν τῆ θυίᾳ, καὶ ἥψουν αὐτὸ ἐν τῇ χύτρᾳ καὶ ἐποίουν αὐτὸ ἐνκρυφίας· καὶ ἦν ἡ ἡδονὴ αὐτοῦ ὡσεὶ γεῦμα ἐνκρὶς ἐξ ἐλαίου.
Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0
Latin (Vulgate)
Circuibatque populus, et colligens illud, frangebat mola, sive terebat in mortario, coquens in olla, et faciens ex eo tortulas saporis quasi panis oleati.
La gente salía a recogerlo, lo molía en molinos de mano o lo trituraba en morteros, lo cocinaba en ollas y hacía tortas con él. Sabía a pan amasado con aceite fresco.
Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)
Derramábase el pueblo, y recogían, y molían en molinos, ó majaban en morteros, y lo cocían en caldera, ó hacían de él tortas: y su sabor era como sabor de aceite nuevo.
The people walked around and gathered it, ground it on a handmill or crushed it in a mortar, then boiled it in a cooking pot or shaped it into cakes. It tasted like pastry baked with fine oil.
✦ What the text says
Summary
Numbers 11:8 describes how the people collected the manna and prepared it for eating: gathering it, grinding or pounding it, then cooking it into cakes. The verse ends by comparing its taste to "the cake of the oil" (leshad ha-shamen).
Key words
- sha.Tu ("they went about", H7751A) — qal perfect, opens the sequence of completed actions describing the people's daily routine.
- re.Cha.yim ("hand-mill", H7347) — masculine dual form, indicating the two paired millstones used together, not a single tool.
- da.Khu ("they pounded", H1743) — qal perfect (not sequential like the surrounding verbs), marking an alternative method introduced by 'o ("or", H0176A).
- bi.she.Lu ("they boiled", H1310) — piel (intensive) stem, describing the cooking process as more than passive heating.
- le.Shad ("cake of", H3955) — masculine singular construct, joined to ha.Shamen ("the oil", H8081) to form the comparison phrase for taste.
What the text says
The Hebrew sentence is built almost entirely from a chain of sequential perfect verbs (ve-prefixed forms): la.ke.Tu, ta.cha.Nu, vi.she.Lu, 'a.Su, ha.Yah. This chain narrates one continuous process — gathering, grinding, boiling, making, and finally "it was" (the taste). The verb da.Khu ("they pounded") breaks this pattern slightly, appearing as a plain perfect rather than continuing the ve-sequence, and is linked by 'o ("or", H0176A) to ta.cha.Nu ("they ground"), presenting pounding as an alternative to grinding rather than a further step in the same sequence.
The dual noun re.Cha.yim ("hand-mill") reflects the physical object as a pair of stones, a detail the singular English "mill" does not preserve. The final clause uses a double construct chain: ta'.mo ("its taste") is compared (ke, "like") to Ta.'am ("taste of") le.Shad ("cake of") ha.Shamen ("the oil") — three nouns stacked in construct relationship to produce the comparison "its taste was like the taste of the cake of the oil."
Differences between versions
The LXX renders the final comparison as "ὡσεὶ γεῦμα ἐνκρὶς ἐξ ἐλαίου" ("like the taste of a cake from oil"), close to the Hebrew construct chain. The Vulgate instead reads "saporis quasi panis oleati" ("a taste like oiled bread"), using "bread" (panis) where the Hebrew has le.Shad ("cake of", H3955). The LXX also renders 'a.Su... 'u.Got ("they made... cakes") as ἐποίουν αὐτὸ ἐνκρυφίας, using a term for baked cakes rather than a direct equivalent of u.Got (H5692).
This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.