Numbers 28:26

Summary

Numbers 28:26 establishes a regulation for the "day of firstfruits" (yom ha-bikkurim), when a new grain offering is brought to Yehovah during the Feast of Weeks. On that day the community must hold a holy convocation, and ordinary work is prohibited.

Key words

• bikkurim ("first-fruits", H1061) — masculine plural noun, defining the type of day being marked; the offering consists of the earliest yield of the harvest.
• hakriv ("bring near", H7126) — hiphil infinitive, causative form indicating the act of "causing to draw near," i.e., presenting an offering; combined with the pronominal suffix -khem ("you," H9046) it specifies that the people themselves perform this bringing.
• minchah chadashah ("a new grain offering", H4503/H2319) — feminine singular noun with feminine singular adjective in agreement, describing the offering as freshly harvested grain, distinct from prior stores.
• shavu'oteikhem ("your weeks", H7620) — feminine plural construct noun with possessive suffix, anchoring the offering to the counted seven-week period following the earlier grain harvest.
• miqra qodesh ("a convocation of holiness", H4744/H6944) — construct chain where qodesh functions as a genitive modifier, marking the assembly itself as set apart rather than merely describing an event that happens to be holy.

What the text says

The verse opens with a temporal clause built from u-ve-yom ("and on the day of") plus the construct ha-bikkurim, fixing the timing before any instruction is given. The main clause is suspended until the infinitive construct be-hakrivkhem ("when you bring near") supplies the circumstance: the offering of minchah chadashah to YHWH occurs within shavu'oteikhem, literally "your weeks," referring to the counted period rather than a single day name. Grammatically, the construct chain miqra-qodesh does not simply pair two nouns loosely; the second noun qodesh ("holiness") functions genitivally, so the assembly is defined by its quality of separateness, a nuance smoothed over when translations render it simply as "sacred assembly" or "holy convocation." The imperfect verb yihyeh ("it will be", H1961) signals an standing obligation rather than a one-time event, matching the durative sense of lo tha'asu ("you will not do", H6213) at the end, a second-person plural imperfect used prohibitively. The construct melekhet avodah ("work of servitude") pairs a general noun for "work" with a noun denoting labor performed under service, narrowing the prohibition to a specific category of labor rather than all activity.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders bikkurim as "τῶν νέων" ("of new things") rather than the more specific "firstfruits," and translates miqra qodesh as "ἐπίκλητος ἁγία" ("a holy calling/summons"), shifting the grammatical structure from a construct noun-phrase to an adjective-noun pairing. The Vulgate uses "primitivorum" for bikkurim and expands miqra qodesh into "venerabilis et sancta" ("venerable and holy"), adding a term ("venerabilis") not directly present in the Hebrew construct. The Hebrew melekhet avodah is rendered by the LXX as "ἔργον λατρευτὸν" and by the Vulgate as "opus servile," both narrowing toward "servile work," consistent with the Hebrew's specific sense of labor-service rather than all labor.