Numbers 29:22

Summary

Numbers 29:22 lists a single male goat as a sin offering, added on top of the daily continual burnt offering, along with its accompanying grain offering and drink offering. The verse is part of a sequence of festival offering prescriptions, continuing a list introduced by the conjunction u ("and", H9002).

Key words

• se'ir ("a male goat of", H8163B) — masculine singular construct noun, linking directly to chatat to form the phrase "goat of a sin offering."
• chatat ("a sin offering", H2403H) — feminine singular noun specifying the purpose of the goat.
• 'echad ("one", H0259) — cardinal number in feminine singular form, placed after the noun phrase to emphasize the quantity: exactly one goat.
• tamid ("continuity", H8548) — masculine singular noun with the definite article ha (H9009), forming "the continuity," i.e., the offering performed on a regular/daily basis.
• minchatah ("grain offering", H4503G) with suffix -h ("its", H9024) — the possessive suffix ties this grain offering back to the burnt offering ('olat ha-tamid) mentioned just before it.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built as a chain of construct relationships. Se'ir ("goat of") governs chatat ("sin offering"), producing "a goat of a sin offering," to which 'echad ("one") is appended afterward, numerically specifying the animal. The phrase millevad — formed from the prepositions mi (H9006) and le (H9005) plus the noun vad ("besides", H0905J) — functions as a compound preposition meaning "apart from" or "in addition to," marking that this goat offering is supplementary to what follows.

What follows is another construct chain: 'olat ha-tamid, "the burnt offering of the continuity," referring to the offering performed on a regular basis. The two final terms, minchatah ("its grain offering") and niskah ("its drink offering"), each carry the feminine singular pronominal suffix -h ("its"), grammatically pointing back to ha-tamid. This suffix structure shows that the grain and drink offerings are treated as belonging specifically to the continual burnt offering, not to the goat sin offering mentioned first.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders se'ir chatat as χίμαρον ἐξ αἰγῶν ... περὶ ἁμαρτίας ("a kid from among the goats ... for sin"), splitting the Hebrew construct phrase into two separate descriptive elements. At the end of the verse, the LXX uses plural forms, αἱ θυσίαι αὐτῶν καὶ αἱ σπονδαὶ αὐτῶν ("their sacrifices and their libations"), where the Hebrew has singular suffixed nouns (minchatah, niskah, "its grain offering," "its drink offering"). The Vulgate's singular eius ("its") in "sacrificioque et libamine ejus" corresponds more closely to the Hebrew singular suffix than the LXX's plural rendering.