Numbers 28:30

Summary

Numbers 28:30 specifies a single male goat to be offered as part of the sacrificial regulations, with the explicit purpose of making atonement on behalf of the community. The verse is a brief addition to a longer list of festival offerings, marked by its infinitive purpose clause.

Key words

• se.'Ir ("a male goat of", H8163B) — masculine singular construct noun, requiring a following noun to complete its meaning ("goat of...").
• 'i.Zim ("goats", H5795) — masculine plural noun completing the construct chain, specifying the goat is from the goat-species (as opposed to sheep).
• 'e.Chad ("one", H0259) — cardinal number; note it is grammatically feminine while modifying a masculine noun phrase, a known feature of numeral usage in Biblical Hebrew where "one" can pattern differently from strict gender agreement.
• kha.Per ("make atonement", H3722A) — Piel (intensive stem) infinitive construct, expressing purpose ("in order to atone"); the Piel stem intensifies the basic verbal action.
• 'a.lei.Khem ("on you", H5921A + H9036) — preposition with pronominal suffix, second person masculine plural, indicating the beneficiaries of the atoning act.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is compact, consisting of a noun phrase (the offering specified) followed by a purpose clause. The construct chain se.'Ir + 'i.Zim functions as a single unit meaning "a goat of the goats," a common Hebrew way of specifying an animal by its general category before further qualifying it with a number. The numeral 'e.Chad ("one") then narrows this to a single animal.

The infinitive kha.Per, in the Piel stem, expresses the purpose of the offering: the goat is set apart specifically "to atone." This is followed by the prepositional phrase 'a.lei.Khem, which identifies who benefits from the atoning action — grammatically second person plural, addressed to the community rather than an individual.

The verse has no finite main verb of its own; it depends syntactically on the surrounding context (the offering list in Numbers 28) for its main clause, functioning as an appended specification.

Differences between versions

The LXX inserts περὶ ἁμαρτίας ("concerning sin"), a phrase with no corresponding Hebrew term in this verse — the Hebrew simply states the purpose as le-khaper ("to atone") without specifying sin explicitly. The Vulgate diverges further, using "qui mactatur pro expiatione" ("which is sacrificed for expiation") and adding a reference to "holocaustum sempiternum et liba ejus" ("the perpetual burnt offering and its libations"), content not present in the Hebrew of this specific verse but drawn from the broader chapter context.