Numbers 28:20
וּמִנְחָתָם סֹלֶת בְּלוּלָה בַשָּׁמֶן שְׁלֹשָׁה עֶשְׂרֹנִים לַפָּר וּשְׁנֵי עֶשְׂרֹנִים לָאַיִל תַּעֲשֽׂוּ׃
✦ Hebrew interlinear
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✦ The same verse in five languages
וּמִ֨נְחָתָ֔ם סֹ֖לֶת בְּלוּלָ֣ה בַשָּׁ֑מֶן שְׁלֹשָׁ֨ה עֶשְׂרֹנִ֜ים לַפָּ֗ר וּשְׁנֵ֧י עֶשְׂרֹנִ֛ים לָאַ֖יִל תַּעֲשֽׂוּ׃
καὶ θυσία αὐτῶν σεμίδαλις ἀναπεποιημένη ἐν ἐλαίῳ, τρία δέκατα τῷ μόσχῳ τῷ ἑνὶ καὶ δύο δέκατα τῷ κριῷ τῷ ἑνί,
Greek text from Swete's edition, CC BY-SA 4.0
Latin (Vulgate)
et sacrificia singulorum ex simila quæ conspersa sit oleo, tres decimas per singulos vitulos, et duas decimas per arietem,
Junto con ellos presentarán la ofrenda de grano de harina fina mezclada con aceite: tres décimos de efa por cada toro y dos décimos por el carnero.
Classic Spanish (Reina-Valera 1909)
Y su presente de harina amasada con aceite: tres décimas con cada becerro, y dos décimas con cada carnero ofreceréis;
The grain offering shall consist of fine flour mixed with oil; offer three-tenths of an ephah with each bull, two-tenths of an ephah with the ram,
✦ What the text says
Summary
Numbers 28:20 specifies the grain offering (minchah, H4503G) that accompanies the burnt offerings of bull and ram: fine flour mixed with oil, measured in fixed quantities of tenths of an ephah for each animal.
Key words
- minchatam ("their grain offering", H4503G) — feminine singular construct with 3rd person masculine plural suffix "their," linking the offering to the animals mentioned in context.
- belulah ("mixed", H1101A) — qal passive participle feminine singular, describing the flour as already having undergone mixing with oil, a completed state rather than an action in progress.
- esronim ("tenths", H6241) — masculine plural, appears twice with different cardinal numbers (three, two), each governed by a preposition marking allocation "for" a specific animal.
- la-par ("for the young bull", H6499) — preposition + article + noun, marking the recipient/purpose of the three-tenths measure.
- ta'asu ("you will offer/make", H6213I) — qal imperfect, second person masculine plural, placing the verb at the end of the sentence and governing the entire preceding list of instructions as its object.
What the text says
The Hebrew sentence structure delays its main verb, ta'asu ("you will offer", H6213I), until the very end. Everything before it — the grain offering, its flour, the oil, and the specific tenths-measures for bull and ram — functions as the object of this final verb. This syntactic arrangement means a reader must hold all the descriptive material in mind before learning what action applies to it: the verb governs the whole preceding list as a single instruction.
The construct form minchatam ("their grain offering", H4503G) ties this offering back to the animals named in the surrounding context (the bull and ram), using the pronominal suffix "their" (H9028) to mark possession or association. The participle belulah ("mixed", H1101A) describes the flour's condition as already prepared — a passive state — rather than commanding a mixing action within this verse itself. The two measurements, sheloshah esronim ("three tenths", H7969 + H6241) for the bull and shenei esronim ("two tenths", H8147 + H6241) for the ram, are each attached to their respective animal via the preposition la- ("for the", H9005), creating parallel prepositional phrases that distribute the flour quantity according to which animal it accompanies.
Differences between versions
The LXX renders par ("young bull", H6499) as τῷ μόσχῳ τῷ ἑνὶ ("for the one bull") and ayil ("ram", H0352A) as τῷ κριῷ τῷ ἑνί ("for the one ram"), adding the numeral "one" (ἑνί) not present in the Hebrew text, which simply reads la-par and la-ayil without any numeral modifier. The Vulgate similarly uses per singulos vitulos ("for each individual bull") and per arietem ("for the ram"), where "singulos" introduces a distributive sense not explicitly marked in the Hebrew construct phrases.
This explanation describes the text using linguistic data; it adds no doctrine or confessional interpretation.