Numbers 29:1

Summary

Numbers 29:1 sets a date — the first day of the seventh month — as a day marked by a sacred assembly, a prohibition on servile labor, and a designation described in Hebrew as a "day of blast/shout."

Key words

Cho.desh ("month", H2320) — masculine singular noun, appearing twice (once with the ordinal "seventh," once with "one/first"), anchoring the calendrical marker of the verse.

mik.ra'- ("a convocation of", H4744) — construct noun that binds to ko.desh ("holiness", H6944G) to form the phrase "convocation of holiness," commonly rendered "sacred/holy assembly."

yih.Yeh ("it will be", H1961) — qal imperfect, third person masculine singular, appearing twice in the verse; it projects the stated condition (the convocation, the day) into ongoing/future validity "for you" (la.Khem, H9036).

ta.'a.Su ("you will do", H6213A) — qal imperfect, second person masculine plural, negated by lo' ("not", H3808), producing the prohibition "you will not do."

te.ru.'Ah ("[the] sound of a loud blast", H8643) — feminine singular noun forming the construct phrase Yom te.ru.'Ah, "day of a loud blast/shout," the label given to this day.

What the text says

The verse opens with a temporal construction: u.va.Cho.desh ha.she.vi.'I ("and in the month, the seventh") followed by be.'e.Chad la.Cho.desh ("on one/first, of the month"), together fixing the date as day one of month seven. The main clause states mik.ra'-ko.desh yih.Yeh la.Khem, literally "a convocation of holiness will be to you" — the construct chain mik.ra'-ko.desh treats "holiness" as qualifying the noun "convocation," producing the sense of a set-apart gathering, with the verb yih.Yeh (imperfect) indicating this status holds going forward rather than describing a single completed event.

The second clause negates labor: kol-me.Le.khet 'a.vo.Dah lo' ta.'a.Su, "any work of servitude you will not do." The construct me.Le.khet 'a.vo.Dah joins "work" to "servitude," specifying the category of labor forbidden, distinct from any general activity. The final clause repeats the yih.Yeh...la.Khem frame with Yom te.ru.'Ah, "a day of te.ru'ah" — a noun denoting a loud sound or blast, without the Hebrew text itself specifying an instrument.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew Yom te.ru.'Ah ("day of a loud blast") is rendered by the LXX as ἡμέρα σημασίας ("day of signal/signification"), a more abstract term for a sign or signal rather than a specified sound. The Vulgate makes the instrument explicit: "dies clangoris est et tubarum" ("a day of clangor and of trumpets"), adding "trumpets" (tubarum) where the Hebrew noun te.ru.'Ah does not itself name an instrument. The English BSB and Spanish translations follow the Vulgate's interpretive tradition by explicitly mentioning "trumpets," while the Hebrew term remains a noun for a sound/blast without naming its source.