Numbers 28:13

Summary

Numbers 28:13 specifies the grain offering that accompanies each of the two daily lambs: a measured portion of fine flour mixed with oil, presented as a burnt offering whose smell is described as pleasing to Yehovah. The verse closes the description of the regular (tamid) offering pattern for the second lamb.

Key words

• 'issaron ("a tenth [of an ephah]", H6241) — appears twice in immediate succession (words 2–3), a Hebrew idiom of repetition used to express a distributive sense: a fixed portion allotted "to each one," here to each lamb of the twice-daily sacrifice.
• belulah ("mixed", H1101A) — a Qal passive participle, feminine singular, agreeing with solet ("fine flour", H5560); it describes the flour as having already undergone the mixing with oil, not as an ongoing action.
• re'ach ("odor of", H7381) — construct form, meaning it must be joined to the following noun to form the phrase "odor of restfulness/soothing," rather than standing as an independent noun.
• nichoach ("soothing", H5207) — the noun completing the construct chain with re'ach, together forming a fixed cultic expression describing the effect of the offering's smoke.
• 'isheh ("a fire offering", H0801) — a distinct technical term for an offering consumed by fire, appearing in apposition to 'olah ("a burnt offering", H5930A) earlier in the verse.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built as a chain of appositional and construct phrases rather than a full independent clause; it reads almost like a list of specifications attached to the lamb offering described in the preceding verses. The doubling of 'issaron 'issaron (words 2–3) is a grammatical device of repetition that Biblical Hebrew uses to mark distribution — "a tenth-measure for each" — rather than a multiplication of the measure. The participle belulah ("mixed") shows the flour in a completed state, modifying minchah ("a grain offering", H4503G), and the phrase ba-shemen ("with the oil", H8081) specifies the mixing agent using the preposition-plus-article form (H9003). The final clause stacks three descriptive nouns — 'olah, re'ach nichoach, 'isheh — in apposition, each naming the same offering from a different angle: as a whole burnt offering, as something producing a pleasing smell, and as an offering consumed by fire, all directed la-Yehovah ("to Yehovah", H9005 + H3068).

Differences between versions

The Vulgate renders the doubled 'issaron 'issaron as "decimam decimæ" ("a tenth of a tenth"), treating the repetition as a genitive chain rather than as the Hebrew's distributive idiom "a tenth each." The LXX instead gives simply "δέκατον" ("a tenth"), a single measure-word without doubling, differing from both the Hebrew repetition and the Vulgate's genitive reading. The Hebrew la-Yehovah is rendered Κυρίῳ ("to the Lord") in the LXX and Domino in the Vulgate, both substituting a title for the tetragrammaton.