Numbers 28:6

Summary

The verse identifies the daily burnt offering as one that was originally instituted at Mount Sinai, describing it as a fire offering producing a soothing odor for Yehovah. It links the ongoing sacrificial practice to its foundational institution.

Key words

• 'o.Lat ("a burnt offering of", H5930A) — feminine singular construct noun, joining directly to tamid to form the phrase "burnt offering of continuity," i.e., the offering characterized by regularity.
• ta.Mid ("continuity", H8548) — masculine singular noun functioning as the second term of the construct chain, giving the offering its defining quality of being continual/regular.
• 'a.su.Yah ("was instituted", H6213I) — qal passive participle, feminine singular, agreeing with 'olat; it describes the offering as one that "was made/done" — here in the sense of having been established or performed at a specific past location.
• Har ("[the] mountain of", H2022G) — masculine singular construct noun, linking to Sinai to form "Mountain of Sinai," anchoring the participle's action to a specific place.
• Rei.ach ("an odor of", H7381) — masculine singular construct noun, forming the phrase "odor of soothing" (reiach nichoach), describing the sensory effect attributed to the offering.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built almost entirely through construct chains and a participial clause, without a finite verb. The opening phrase 'olat tamid ("burnt offering of continuity") functions as the subject or topic, modified by the passive participle 'asuyah ("was instituted" / "was made"), which is grammatically feminine to agree with 'olah. This participle takes the prepositional phrase be-har Sinai ("at Mount Sinai") as its locative complement, indicating where the offering was first established or performed.

The second half of the verse, le-reiach nichoach ("to/for an odor of soothing"), uses another construct chain to describe the purpose or effect of the offering — its aroma. This is followed by 'isheh ("a fire offering"), a term denoting an offering consumed by fire, and the whole clause closes with the prepositional phrase la-YHWH ("to Yehovah"), marking the recipient of the offering. The construction lacks explicit tense markers beyond the participle, allowing the passive form 'asuyah to carry both a completed nuance ("was made") and a durative one ("is made/instituted"), which different translations resolve in different directions.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew participle 'asuyah ("was instituted"/"was made") is rendered by the LXX as ἡ γενομένη ("the one that came to be"), emphasizing a past event. The Vulgate renders the clause as "quod obtulistis" ("which you offered"), shifting the grammatical subject to a second-person plural addressee not explicitly present in the Hebrew construction. The BSB reflects the institutional sense ("established"), while the SBLIBRE Spanish version renders it as "fue ordenado" ("was ordered/decreed"), introducing a nuance of command not directly carried by the Hebrew passive participle of 'asah ("to do/make", H6213I).