Numbers 28:19

Summary

Numbers 28:19 instructs the community to bring a fire offering consisting of a burnt offering to Yehovah: two young bulls, one ram, and seven yearling lambs, all required to be without blemish. The verse specifies both the composition of the animal offering and the mandatory unblemished condition.

Key words

• hik.rav.Tem ("you will bring near", H7126H) — hiphil causative, sequential perfect, plural "you all"; continues the ongoing sequence of instructions and casts the offering as something the addressees actively cause to be brought.
• 'i.Sheh ("a fire offering", H0801) — masculine singular noun naming the general category of offering, paired here with 'o.Lah to specify its type.
• pa.Rim be.nei- va.Kar ("young bulls, young ones of cattle", H6499 + H1121H + H1241) — construct chain; be.nei ("young ones of") links pa.Rim to va.Kar, specifying that these are bulls belonging to the cattle category, followed by the dual number she.Na.yim ("two", H8147) for count.
• be.Nei sha.Nah ("sons of a year", H1121L + H8141) — construct phrase describing the lambs' age class, literally "sons of a year," i.e., yearlings.
• te.mi.Mim ("unblemished", H8549G) — masculine plural adjective agreeing with the preceding animals collectively, paired with yih.Yu ("they will be", H1961, qal imperfect) to state a required future condition rather than a mere description.

What the text says

The verse opens with the sequential perfect hik.rav.Tem, which continues a chain of instructions already established in the surrounding text — grammatically marking this as the next required action in a series rather than an isolated command. The offering is named twice: first as 'i.Sheh ("a fire offering"), a general term for offerings consumed by fire, then narrowed to 'o.Lah ("a burnt offering"), a more specific category. This double naming defines the class of sacrifice before the text enumerates its contents.

The list of animals uses construct chains to specify kind before quantity: pa.Rim be.nei- va.Kar identifies the bulls as belonging to the cattle category before she.Na.yim ("two") gives the count. Similarly, khe.va.Sim be.Nei sha.Nah ("lambs, sons of a year") specifies the lambs' age class — one year old — through the construct "sons of a year," before the count shiv.'Ah ("seven") is given earlier in the clause. The ram, 'A.yil, needs no construct qualifier and is simply numbered with 'e.Chad ("one").

The final clause, te.mi.Mim yih.Yu la.khem ("unblemished they will be to you"), uses the qal imperfect yih.Yu to state an ongoing or future requirement applying to the whole set of animals just listed, rather than describing them as already unblemished. The preposition-plus-suffix la.khem ("to you," plural) frames this condition as directed at the addressees collectively.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders the animal offering with ὁλοκαυτώματα καρπώματα ("whole burnt offerings, offerings by fire") where the Hebrew presents 'i.Sheh and 'o.Lah as two distinct nominal terms; the LXX also specifies ἀμνοὺς ἐνιαυσίους ("lambs of a year") corresponding to khe.va.Sim be.Nei sha.Nah. The Vulgate's incensum holocaustum similarly compresses the two Hebrew terms into a single hendiadys-like phrase, while preserving the numerical breakdown (duos, unum, septem) matching the Hebrew counts.