Numbers 29:17

Summary

Numbers 29:17 lists the animal offerings prescribed for the second day of the festival: twelve young bulls, two rams, and fourteen yearling lambs, all specified as unblemished. The verse is a continuation of the sacrificial calendar begun in the surrounding verses, itemizing quantities without repeating the verb of offering.

Key words

• pa.Rim ("young bulls", H6499) — masculine plural noun, the first category of animal in the list.
• be.nei-va.Kar ("young ones of cattle", H1121H + H1241) — construct chain specifying that the pa.Rim are bovine offspring, i.e., young bulls of the herd.
• she.Neim 'a.Sar ("two-ten", H8147 + H6240) — the numeral "twelve," built from the dual form of "two" combined with "ten," the standard Hebrew pattern for teen numbers above ten.
• ke.va.Sim be.nei-sha.Nah ("lambs, sons of a year", H3532 + H1121L + H8141) — construct phrase where "sons of a year" is the idiomatic way to express "yearling," describing the age class of the lambs.
• te.mi.Mim ("unblemished", H8549G) — masculine plural adjective agreeing with the lambs (or potentially all listed animals), indicating physical wholeness required for the offering.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence contains no finite verb; it is a nominal list opening with the temporal phrase u-va-Yom ha-she.Ni ("and on the second day", H9002+H9003+H3117G+H9009+H8145), which anchors the list to a specific day in the festival sequence. The animals are named in three groups — bulls, rams, lambs — each followed by its numeral, and the numerals themselves follow a construct pattern in Hebrew: units are stated first, then joined to "ten" ('a.Sar, H6240) to form teen numbers, as in she.Neim 'a.Sar ("twelve") and 'ar.ba.'Ah 'a.Sar ("fourteen", H0702+H6240).

The two construct phrases be.nei-va.Kar and be.nei-sha.Nah both use be.nei ("sons/young ones of", H1121) to specify subcategories — cattle-born bulls and year-old lambs — a grammatical pattern not visible when translated simply as "bulls" and "lambs of a year." The final adjective te.mi.Mim ("unblemished", H8549G) closes the list, describing the required physical condition of the animals just enumerated.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew text has no explicit verb governing this list of offerings; it functions as an appended inventory. The Vulgate supplies the verb "offeretis" ("you shall offer"), making explicit an action that the Hebrew leaves implicit through continuation from the surrounding context. The LXX renders the numbers as bare numerals (ιβ, β, ιδ) rather than spelled-out compound number-words as in the Hebrew, a stylistic difference in how quantities are notated rather than a difference in the values themselves.